Protection of Critical Waterborne Transport Infrastructures: An Economic Review

It is essential that transport infrastructures are protected against events which cause their failure. At an optimal level of protection, the sum of protection costs and expected residual damages following from disruptions will be minimized. In most cases however, this optimal level is not achieved because infrastructure protection is susceptible to various market and government failures. This brings us to the question who (a private or public actor) should do how much (the level of protection and intervention). This question is addressed in the present paper.

The starting point of the paper is the Directive of the European Council on the identification and designation of European Critical Infrastructures. We review the protection of critical waterborne transport infrastructures from an economic perspective. The review is based on a literature study and several interviews with Critical Infrastructure experts. For the studied infrastructures, we have identified causes and effects of their failure and examined the private–public roles in protecting them. Considering the market and government failures which occur in such configuration of roles, we propose several changes. We conclude that from a national policy perspective there are two important routes: (1) reinforcement of private sector roles among others by defining liabilities and providing information on risks and (2) strengthening of supra-national collaboration via improving and standardizing regulations, cost-sharing initiatives and penalty systems.     

Promoting Cycling for Transport: Research Needs and Challenges

Abstract

Near future travel-time information is one of the most critical factors that travellers consider before making trip decisions. In efforts to provide more reliable future travel-time estimations, transportation engineers have examined various techniques developed in the last three decades. However, there have not been sufficiently systematic and through reviews so far. In order to effectively support various transportation strategies and applications including Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), it is necessary to apply appropriate forecasting methods for matching circumstances in a timely manner. This paper conducts a comprehensive review study focusing on literatures, including modern techniques proposed recently, related to travel time and traffic condition predictions that are based on ‘data-driven' approaches. Based on the underlying mechanisms and theoretical principles, different approaches are categorized as parametric (linear regression and time series) and non-parametric approaches (artificial intelligence and pattern searching). Then, the approaches are analysed for their strengths, potential weaknesses, and performances from five main perspectives that are prediction range, accuracy, efficiency, applicability, and robustness.     

Contractual PPPs for Transport Infrastructure in Spain: Lessons from the Economic Recession

In this paper, we analyse the successes and failures of contractual public-private partnerships (PPPs) for delivering and operating transport infrastructure in Spain from the award of the first toll highway concession programme to the present. To that end, we show the risk allocation principles used in Spain and explore the evolution of the contracting approaches over the years. We found that the performance was reasonably good until the arrival of the economic crisis in 2008. Taking advantage of that, we make a review of contractual PPPs for different transport modes and assess the impact that the economic crisis has had on their business performance and the capacity of the central and regional governments to fulfil their commitments with the private sector. This analysis enabled us to identify measures that, if had been applied, would have improved the resilience of these contract during the economic crisis.     

Efficiency of European Funds in the Accession Countries: The Case of Transport Infrastructure Investments in Latvia

ABSTRACT

A transport initiative, like any kind of public action, has an impact on the monetary cost, time cost, efficiency and comfort of the transportation of goods and people, in particular transport infrastructure investments. All such initiatives are subject to cost benefit analyses at the national and EU level to know whether the present value of total net benefits including environmental impacts exceeds their cost. However, several important policy issues remain unresolved in standard evaluation procedures. One issue is whether the so-called direct measurement of user benefit, which consists of quantifying changes in surplus of the users of the transport system, captures all welfare generated in the economy. Another issue is how the gains (or possibly losses) of a transport initiative are distributed among regions. The aim of this article is to perform a systematic and quantitative analysis of the socio-economic and spatial impacts of alternative transport investments by carrying out scenario simulations in order to improve the understanding of the impact of transportation policies on the short- and long-term spatial development in Latvia. The general result from the scenario simulations is that rail projects seem to be more effective in terms of promoting regional economic activity than road projects.     

交通基础设施对西部社会经济发展的影响评价

《交通基础设施对西部社会经济发展的影响评价》项目在借鉴国内外研究成果和广泛资料调研的基础上,结合专家群组咨询、理论分析、数理统计与检验等手段,构建了交通科技项目评价指标体系,从微观和宏观层面分析了"十五"西部交通建设科技项目的实施效果,完成了交通基础设施对西部社会经济发展的综合影响评价。本篇对项目的主要研究成果和创新点进行了介绍,提出了相应的建议,为我国西部地区交通基础设施建设提供参考依据。     

Sustainability Assessment of Transport Infrastructure Projects: A Review of Existing Tools and Methods

Abstract

Attempts to integrate sustainability in the decision-making process for transport infrastructure projects continue to gain momentum. A number of tools and methodological frameworks are available — such as rating systems, traditional decision-making techniques, checklists, and different evaluation frameworks and models. While these tools are highly valuable, some practical issues remain unsolved. There is also a need for more standardized tools to appraise the sustainability of transport projects. This paper is a presentation of a review on the current assessment tools of sustainability applied to transport infrastructure projects. The preliminary part of the paper is an explanatory and comparative analysis of the tools and methods in terms of their effectiveness to appraise sustainability. The analysis is a critical evaluation of the current state of the art to identify the limitations of existing approaches, point out new areas of research, and propose a sustainability appraisal agenda for the future.     

玉林市公路交通运输对区域经济发展的影响分析

公路交通运输与区域经济发展密不可分,公路交通的发展程度必然会对区域经济发展产生极大的影响。文章以玉林市为例,运用弹性系数法,通过详细的数据对比和计算,系统地分析了公路交通运输对玉林市经济活动区位、区域产业结构及经济发展水平的影响,表明公路交通运输在玉林市区域经济发展的过程中占据了重要的地位。     

Estimating Freight Transport Price Elasticity in Multi-mode Studies: A Review and Additional Results from a Multimodal Network Model

Abstract

The paper presents a detailed comparative review of price/cost elasticity estimates published in a number of studies on multi-mode freight transport demands. It attempts to determine which factors could explain the wide diversity of estimates: data aggregation, diversity of markets, and methodology. It also presents new estimates for rail, road, and waterway modes, derived from a multimodal freight network model of the Rhine area market. Direct and cross-elasticities are estimated for 11 groups of commodities and per distance category. The results are critically assessed by comparison with the reviewed studies. The paper concludes with a few recommendations about meaningful uses of existing estimates and the need for additional experiments with different methodologies applied on a common data basis.     

高铁时代下广西道路客运企业面临的机遇与挑战探析

文章从高铁时代下高铁运输对传统道路运输的冲击入手,结合区域经济发展情况,分析道路运输企业所面临的挑战和发展机遇,探讨了高铁与道路客运的优劣性,提出道路客运企业应对挑战、走出困境、持续发展的对策。     

Impact of public transport and non-motorized transport infrastructure on travel mode shares,energy, emissions and safety: Case of Indian cities

Current modal share in Indian cities is in favor of non-motorized transport (NMT) and public transport (PT), however historical trends shows decline in its use. Existing NMT and PT infrastructure in Indian cities is of poor quality resulting in increasing risk from road traffic crashes to these users. It is therefore likely that the current NMT and PT users will shift to personal motorized vehicles (PMV) as and when they can afford it. Share of NMT and PT users can be retained and possibly increased if safe and convenient facilities for them are created. This shall also have impact on reducing environment impacts of transport system.We have studied travel behavior of three medium size cities – Udaipur, Rajkot and Vishakhapatnam. Later the impact of improving built environment and infrastructure on travel mode shares, fuel consumption, emission levels and traffic safety in Rajkot and Vishakhapatnam are analyzed. For the purpose three scenarios are developed – improving only NMT infrastructure, improving only bus infrastructure and improving both NMT and bus infrastructure.The study shows the strong role of NMT infrastructure in both cities despite geographical dissimilarities. The scenario analysis shows maximum reduction in CO₂ emissions is achieved when both PT and NMT infrastructure are improved. Improvement in safety indicator is highest in this scenario. Improving only PT infrastructure may have marginal effect on overall reduction of CO₂ emissions and adverse effects on traffic safety. NMT infrastructure is crucial for maintaining the travel mode shares in favor of PT and NMT in future.     

甩挂运输半挂车电子标识技术研究

针对现阶段的道路运输远程监控体系中无法识别半挂车的身份与特征信息的问题,通过对甩挂运输企业、站(场)、整车生产企业进行广泛调研,文中提出了基于RFID无线射频技术的甩挂运输半挂车身份电子标识技术要求,分析了电子标识具体技术参数的限值范围,为规范甩挂运输半挂车身份电子标识的发展提供了技术支撑。     

Tales on the dark side of the transport infrastructure provision: a systematic literature review of the determinants of cost overruns

ABSTRACT

Cost overruns are an endemic feature of the provision of transport infrastructure worldwide. In recent decades, a considerable amount of studies has been devoted to assessing the magnitude and determinants of cost overruns in the transportation sector. However, the empirical findings are scattered between different strands of literature, ranging from the fields of construction engineering and management to that of applied economics. To shed light on the determinants of cost overruns in the execution of transport infrastructure projects, we conduct a systematic review of the empirical literature on the topic. Of the 945 articles retrieved, 26 articles published between 2000 and 2016 meet our inclusion criteria. For them, we describe the different empirical approaches, we provide a classification of the determinants employed in the analyses and summarise their impact on cost overruns. Finally, we suggest some directions for further research in the field.     

Decoupling of Road Freight Transport and Economic Growth Trends in the UK: An Exploratory Analysis

Abstract

Between 1997 and 2004, gross domestic product increased in real terms in the UK by one‐fifth, while the volume of road freight movement remained stable. This suggests that the long‐awaited decoupling of economic and freight transport growth has begun, possibly leading to a new era of sustainable logistics. This paper reviews previous research on the decoupling issue and recent trends in gross domestic product/freight tonne‐km elasticities in Europe and the USA. It then examines 12 possible causes of the observed decoupling in the UK using published statistics from a wide range of British and European sources. This analysis indicates that around two‐thirds of the decoupling is due to three factors whose impact can be quantified: the increased penetration of the British road haulage market by foreign operators, a decline in road transport’s share of the freight market, and real increases in road freight rates. Several other factors, most notably the relative growth of the service sector, the diminishing rate of centralization, and the off‐shoring of manufacturing, appear to be having a significant effect, though this finding cannot be measured on the basis of available statistics. The paper concludes that, while the decoupling is in the right direction from a public policy standpoint, the net environmental benefits are likely to be quite modest.     

Air transport and economic growth: a review of the impact mechanism and causal relationships

ABSTRACT

The impacts of air transport on the economy arise both directly, via activity in the aviation sector; and indirectly, via increased spending and wider economic benefits associated with improved access to resources, markets, technology and economic mass. Economic activity, in turn, supports and generates demand for air transport. Despite its potential importance, the reciprocal nature of the causal relationship between air transport and economic performance has remained somewhat understudied. This paper provides a synthesis review of the channels the aviation sector interacts with regional economy. The review focuses on quantitative studies that contribute to the state-of-the-art understandings of the causality. We find that the reciprocal causal relationship is more likely to prevail in less developed economies. For more developed economies, only one direction of the causality is recognised, which runs from air transport to economic growth. Especially substantial is the effect of airline enplanement on service-related employment. The reverse direction of the relationship is, however, not as significant as believed in a causal sense within the developed world. Therefore, cautions need to be taken when applying income elasticities (such as the elasticity of air passenger demand with respect to GDP) in air travel demand forecasting, which implicitly assumes that economic growth causally leads to air traffic increment. Based on the fundamental links between air transport and economic growth, some typical imperfections and inefficiencies in aviation markets are discussed and promising avenues for future research are proposed.     

广西中心城市公共汽车客运行业芡展对策研究

文章结合广西中心城市公共汽车客运行业发展现状,分析了广西中心城市公共汽车客运行业发展存在的问题与成因,提出了相应的处治对策,为城市公共汽车客运行业管理提供参考。     

道路客运小件快运车辆路径和调度研究

制约小件运输发展的瓶颈之一是站到站运输与客户门到门需求之间的矛盾,目前道路客运企业正大力发展门到门的取送货业务,但缺少一套切实可行的取送货运输组织调度方案,基于此,文章建立了考虑客户时效性需求的车辆路径调度数学模型并设计了一种改进的遗传算法进行求解。通过实例证明该算法可以求得满意解,为道路客运企业发展小件快运的最后一公里取送货服务提供运输组织调度方案参考。     

道路旅客运输企业安全责任链研究

责任制贯穿于道路运输生产经营的全过程,所有对道路运输生产经营产生作用和影响的行为都应承担其相应的责任。文中在分析责任链内涵、道路运输安全责任链内容及其作用的基础上,借鉴澳大利亚国家道路货物运输安全责任链管理与处罚的思路,结合我国道路旅客运输特点,探索了我国道路旅客运输企业安全“责任链”,并提出了我国道路旅客运输企业安全责任划分的措施与建议。     

道路旅客运输企业综合业务应用系统研究与应用设计

如何有效地利用部分分散、孤立、沉睡的信息资源,实现数据的共享是当前道路旅客运输企业信息化建设中亟待解决的问题。本文根据道路旅客运输企业管理需求,梳理了运输企业信息化系统总体设计要求,探讨了总体框架设计、系统技术构架、数据库设计与信息资源共享、综合业务平台与现有系统关联、系统层次结构设计等关键技术,建立了道路旅客运输企业综合业务应用系统平台,实现了企业内部各系统之间、企业上下级单位之间的资源的交互共享,最大程度的提高了数据资源的利用率。     

Impacts of trade related sustainability strategies on freight transportation: Modelling framework and application for France

The circular and functional economies are being presented in the literature as potential strategies for future sustainable societies. In terms of the consequences for supply chains, they will promote a much more dispersed and diversified, local and network based usage of goods than the current economy, which is comparatively linear, concentrated, long distance oriented and scale economy based. A gap in the literature is the assessment of the effects of these systems on freight transport flows. In our paper, we present a first attempt at estimating this impact using freight transport scenario building and quantitative modelling. In order to translate the main parameters that characterize these systems into factors determining freight transportation volumes, we develop a framework based on a typology of goods categories describing functional and spatial proximity between producers and consumers. In order to simulate changes in the economy, we develop scenarios for the shifting of goods from one category to another and, additionally, include internalization policies that should guide their realization. We calculate the impacts on freight flows using a new interregional transport model for France that includes distribution chains and produces estimates of external costs of transport. Our results show that circular and functional economies could lead to a 2–5% reduction of air pollutant emissions and up to a 14–26% reduction if combined with the internalization of external costs. The scenario with ongoing mass production for differentiated demand is found to lead to a 5% increase of environmental impacts compared to the baseline.