Policy making and planning for the port sector: paradigms in conflict

Policy making is a complex and diverse process—particularly in relation to the provision and location of port and port related infrastructure. The planning stage of port infrastructure, or indeed transport planning more generally, may be finalized only to experience policy failure as implementation of the planned facility cannot be successfully completed. When this occurs planning and implementation failure is invariably perceived to be driven by a political agenda and it is argued that 'politics gets in the way'—that politics 'distorts' a scientifically rational planning process. Is it the case that politics 'gets in the way'? Or that politics distorts a technical and scientific process? Or is it the case that planning constitutes only one part, but an integral one, of the policy process—a process that is inherently political? And if that is the case, can we legitimately separate the planning process from that of policy making? This paper discusses the fundamental differences between the planning and policy-making processes. It argues that transport planning is one element in a broader process of policy making which incorporates political and other social/economic/environmental elements. It will argue that planning is a fundamental part of the policy-making process and, if successful completion is to be achieved, it cannot be divorced from that process. The paper will provide a conceptual framework which will incorporate these apparently conflictual activities. This model, if adopted, is likely to enhance both the planning and policy-making processes.     

Road pricing and parking policy

The starting point of this paper is that the collection costs of urban road pricing have turned out to be unexpectedly high. A comparative cost analysis of the congestion charging system of London, Stockholm, Oslo and Singapore also shows that there are large collection cost differences. The most striking difference is between Oslo and London. Oslo, like Stockholm has the necessary, natural, qualities for a central city toll ring with a limited number of entrances; just 18 and 19 tollgates are required. For large historic cities like London with hundreds of inlets to the central city, tollgates at every entrance would involve high investment costs and be very obtrusive in the street scene. The problem is, however, that the present London charging system, with no tollgates, shows high running costs, ten times higher than in Oslo, in spite of the fact that the charged number of vehicles is the same in the two cities. This is a formidable obstacle to alleviating urban traffic congestion in many big cities.The charging technology could hopefully be developed, however, another approach is to develop and combine other measures including traffic regulation, parking policy and public transport subsidisation, which would be only second-best in a hypothetical situation where road pricing is without costs. This paper focuses on parking policy. Two strands of parking policy reform are discussed; fringe benefit taxation of free workplace parking which has recently been introduced in Sweden and a two-part tariff at parking meters, which is suggested as an extension of congestion charging to all day traffic within the central city.     

An analysis of the pricing system in the Greek-Italian coastal routes

Price discrimination is practiced by oligopolistic coastal shipping companies in the 'unregulated' Greece-Italy routes in the year 2002. Investigation has been carried out 'per route'—in a doctoral thesis—instead of 'per market' which was the so-far erroneous approach of shipping economists. This is so for a host of differentiating factors play a considerable and non-negligible role (like geography, distance, demand, seasonality and others). Service—and price-discrimination—in coastal shipping is affected also by the predetermined ship design which thus is a special feature—but not exclusively—in coastal shipping. Companies in the Adriatic Sea try to extract the greater possible value of the user's willingness to pay, peak and off-peak, group and ungrouped, for social groups (clubs, families and students). Marketing and economics interfere in a complicated—far from the nice world of theory—situation, where maximization of revenue and profit, capacity utilization, intense seasonality and high fixed cost (common and joint costs as well) are a few of the factors that interplay. This paper can be considered as a case study for applied pricing. Excess capacity is also a strategic factor affecting pricing. It is our opinion that the analysis here gives for the first time a complete theoretical and practical account—based on the price lists of the companies—of the pricing policy of the ferry boats running in the Adriatic Sea belonging to coastal shipping companies connecting Italy with Greece and Greece with the European Union (EU). We believe this work to be useful for maritime Europe.     

Environmental quality within an interorganizational matrix: A case study of the SOHIO project

Abstract

Urban coastal management is now part of a large, complex set of regional, state, and federal interorganizational arrangements. This emerging matrix consists of a loosely linked set of nearly independent decision points. Cities have little capacity within this matrix for independent action. Recent experience in the SOHIO project by the City and Port of Long Beach, California, illustrates the point to which external agencies have taken over decision‐making for use of coastal resources. Public bodies removed from city affairs and politics and with interests in other than coastal affairs have become dominant and have overridden local policy‐making. The public costs to citizens and local governments of the emerging interorganizational matrix are very high and may be excessive. As it is emerging, the matrix is a semi‐autonomous set of bureaucratic decision points which is unhinged from community values and regular political infrastructures.     

Paradoxes of rationality in road safety policy

Rationality is an ideal for transport safety policy. As developed within normative welfare economics, rationality denotes the efficient use of safety measures based on cost–benefit analyses that include all relevant impacts of the measures. Efficiency in the technical sense of the term provides a perfectly clear and precise guideline for policy priorities. Nevertheless, some choices that are guided by cost–benefit analysis may strike us as paradoxical or counterintuitive. A paradox of rationality refers to any situation in which conflicting choices can both be defended as rational. This paper discusses a number of choices that may seem paradoxical. The first involves the choice between options that have identical impacts on safety, but in which these impacts are valued differently. The second deals with the tendency for preference reversals to occur when preferences for the provision of safety are aggregated. The third discusses the inability of conventional measures of willingness-to-pay to reflect the intensity of preferences. The fourth concerns the tendency for policy choice to favour the rich at the expense of the poor when willingness-to-pay is not adjusted for the marginal utility of money. A fifth situation refers to the fact that a policy option that looks attractive ex ante may fail an ex post compensation test because utility functions depend on health state. There is a potential conflict between individual and collective rationality with respect to the costs and benefits of some road safety measures. When developing a road safety programme, a set of road safety measures whose benefits exceed the costs when considered as stand-alone measures could have benefits smaller than cost when combined in a programme consisting of all the measures. Finally, there is a potential conflict between efficiency and negotiated consensus as mechanisms of resource allocation in the public sector. The sources of the paradoxes and ways of avoiding them are discussed. Some of the paradoxes can be avoided if changes in risk are valued in terms of a fixed price per unit of risk rather than according to a non-linear demand function.     

Champions as Influencers of Science Uptake into Australian Coastal Zone Policy

Australia's coastal environments are exposed to great pressures. Adequate policy and management measures are required to ensure the protection of coastal assets now and for future generational use. However, recent government reports and academic literature have highlighted that improved science uptake into policy is needed to ensure coastal communities are protected from impacts such as climate change. The literature suggests that individuals, coined champions, can play an important role in influencing the use of science by policymakers. However, a paucity of research exists surrounding the role of these individuals. This research explores the role of champions in enabling science uptake into policy in the Australian coastal zone, investigating champion characteristics and strategies used in influencing policymakers. A mixed-methods approach to the research was employed, integrating a paper/online survey of people involved in Australian coastal management and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with champions nominated by their peers from the survey. Fourteen key coastal champion characteristics were identified from the survey. Furthermore, the champion interviews identified strategies for influencing science use by policymakers. From these findings a conceptual model was created. In order to enable coastal champions to be fostered, a six-step process was developed that incorporates the use of the conceptual model.     

The Port of Baltimore: off the beaten track?

The Port of Baltimore has recently experienced alarming traffic trends. Most measures of port vitality have been going the wrong way—tonnage, ship calls, market share, steamship service. rail service. Baltimore has been squeezed by external forces and circumstances. Dergulated rail and truck rates have not favoured Baltimore, nor have railroad mergers that have led to rail traffic concentrations at rival seaports. Federal approval of dredging projects has been delaed. Crises in the labour market have created a climate of uncertainty. Global trade patterns and intermodel itineraries have shifted, again, it seems, not to Baltimore'advantage. Baltimore needs new public port policy recommendations. This paper explains some of the problems and offers preliminary suggestions.     

带式输送机皮带打滑故障的分析和解决

当出仓流量高于500t/h时,日照港散粮筒仓的一些皮带机打滑故障严重。这制约生产效率,必须解决。分析了打滑故障的原因,提出了改进尾部张紧装置等措施。这一改造效果取得了良好的效果。     

上海东方饭店装配式结构的综合改造与加固

为满足业主对上海东方饭店建筑主体结构进行改造加固的要求,对原结构进行了现场检测和改造分析。提出加固改造的原则和总体思路,并详细介绍了其主要加固改造方案和加固技术。该工程的改造项目较多,对类似高层建筑的改造加固具有借鉴作用。     

Effective corporatization of ports is a function of effective legislation: legal issues in the existing paradigm

Almost a decade since port corporatization was introduced in Australia it is becoming clear that initial objectives are not being realized. This paper explores some of the legal and legislative causes, the effect on port operation and investigates what necessary conditions are required to deliver an effective corporatized port business. The paper argues that effective corporatization is a product of effective legislation—one which, while emulating private sector business practices—can deliver a business model that is innovative, entrepreneurial, commercially oriented and free from self-serving political constraints.

The legislation and corporatized artifacts in Australian mainland ports have failed, in general, to deliver this. Arguably, the legislation has, in fact, created a model with inherent flaws and serious contradictions. The legislation enacted is such that while it has set in place a model that articulates commercial objectives, the model created is in fact one in which political objectives may override commercial ones; where strategy may be determined by a bureaucratic elite without the requisite skills and insights, and the resultant strategy appears ad hoc; and a corporate culture that frequently has failed to transcend that of the statutory authority and public utility model. This paper will test these assertions against the developments in the port of Melbourne.     

Local public transport on the basis of social economic criteria

Applying the welfare economic approach it is demonstrated what the effects of certain supply changes in the local public transport will be and the potential of innovative demand management measures are examined. Straighter bus routes would reduce the average travel time from door to door. The travel time on the buses decreases and the frequency increases, which reduces waiting times at bus stops. Using smaller buses and more of them would also increase the net benefit, but increase the need for subsidisation. The peak within the peak in the morning is hard to handle by price policy alone. Introducing a small variation of the start of the school-day for high-school pupils would make investment- and operation cost savings possible, and the inconvenience costs for the pupils could be limited. It is only during peak hours in the main direction of peak travel and in the critical section of the line that optimal price becomes high relative to the present level. Zero fares in off-peak will be social profitable, but an increase in subsidy is needed. An introduction of these policy changes would give rise to a net social benefit of 30 million SEK per year in Linköping.     

川江及三峡库区船型标准化研究

本文介绍了川江及三峡库区航运现状,分析了目前存在的主要问题,提出川江及三峡库区船型标准化的指导思想、总体目标、相关措施和政策建议。     

煤堆场高杆灯系统改造

煤堆场现有高杆灯故障频率较高,特别是驱动系统经常发生故障,有必要及时进行改造以降低维修成本.分析高杆灯系统改造前技术状况及缺点,介绍了改造后技术状况及优点.改造后效果良好,为其它高杆灯系统改造提供借鉴.     

轮胎式场桥小车制动器改造

广州集装箱码头的轮胎式场桥小车制动器使用10多年后,出现了许多问题,故进行了改造.分析了轮胎式集装箱龙门起重机小车制动器的主要故障现象,提出了改造方案,并加以实施.     

Land use/transport models and economic assessment

This paper discusses the economic assessment of policies using land use/transport models. It argues that conventional forms of assessment focussing only on transport changes can underestimate the economic benefits of a policy. The paper argues that the benefits need to be measured by the changes of prices at the end of a trip and not just by the changes in travel costs. Models that do not estimate the changes of prices at the end of a trip cannot properly assess the impact of a policy.The model used in this paper is based on the MEPLAN software and estimates the location of households and employment and the interaction between them. It also estimates the cost of living for households and the production costs for employment. With these costs, it is possible to calculate the wider economic benefits beyond transport.The paper illustrates the assessment of policies for the Cambridge sub-region involving investment in public transport, orbital highway and congestion charging policies. The results forecast by the model are assessed in terms of the conventional cost-benefit using traveller’s surplus as benefits and compared with a wider assessment measure of compensation variation. It demonstrates that the last measure encompasses the wider benefits associated with transport policies which are not taken into account in conventional cost-benefit analysis.     

Evaluating seaport policy alternatives: a simulation study of terminal leasing policy and system performance

The competitive characteristics of the North American seaport industry have, in theory, been causally linked to excess investment and low terminal throughput productivity. This paper empirically examines the link between seaport authority container terminal leasing policy and throughput productivity. Recent advances in inventory theory applied to service industries suggest the pooling of demand uncertainty can yield lower costs without sacrificing customer service. This concept is applied to a container seaport using simulation. The effort compares key output measures from a realistic base case model of the seaport to those generated by an alternative terminal leasing policy. It is shown that the pooling of demand in a common-user seaport reduces total vessel time in port by 17.1% with no reduction in TEU throughput. Throughput productivity is improved for the highest capacity terminals, while lower capacity terminals are made available for additional users or alternative uses.     

高架油改电轮胎吊快速转场系统的开发应用

轮胎吊在实施油改电后,采用高架滑触线供电的轮胎吊在实际使用中暴露出了机动性减弱的问题,为此提出了创新方案——高架油改电轮胎吊快速转场系统。阐述了高架油改电快速转场系统的两大部分:油改电轮胎吊自动升降集电器和油改电油电自动切换的设计内容,以及在此系统在投入运行后为油改电系统的运行带来的便捷性和机动性。     

“The Geography of Maritime Transport–Space as a Perspective in Maritime Research and Development”

Emissions from commercial shipping are currently the subject of intense scrutiny. Among the top fuel-consuming categories of ships and hence air polluters are container vessels. The main reason is their high service speed. Lately, speed reduction has become a very popular operational measure to reduce fuel consumption and can obviously be used to curb emissions. This paper examines such an operational scenario. Since time at sea increases with slow steaming, there is a parallel and strong interest to investigate possible ways to decrease time in port. One way to do so is to reduce port service time. Another possible way to minimize disruption and maximize efficiency is the prompt berthing of vessels upon arrival. To that effect, a related berthing policy is investigated as a measure to reduce waiting time. The objective of reducing emissions along the maritime intermodal container chain is investigated vis-à-vis reduction in operational costs and other service attributes. Some illustrative examples are presented.     

Regulating efficiency into port-oriented chain systems: export coal through the Dalrymple Bay Terminal, Australia

Supply chains generally, and port-oriented chains more particularly, are not easily integrated for operational efficiency. This is not especially surprising given their complexity and the underlying power relationships by which they are structured. Nonetheless, integration that does occur may reflect efforts to re-engineer the chain; or, not unusually, it may be the result of substantial, market-based rationalization and consolidation of the industry through corporate restructuring by merger, acquisition or joint venture. Much less common, at least in a ports/shipping context, is the attempt to induce supply-chain integration and operational efficiency by direct application of regulatory power and through the intervention of a regulator into the marketplace. In April 2005 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian competition regulator, intervened in the export coal chain which is oriented on the large coal handling terminal at Dalrymple Bay in Queensland. The Commission, through its authorization powers, allowed the terminal operator to introduce a queue management system designed, inter alia, to reduce ship queuing at the terminal and in so doing reduce the costs of ship demurrage and its negative impacts on exports. This paper focuses particularly, but not only, on the conceptual relationships between regulation and supply chain efficiency; and it examines the mechanisms, processes and outcomes in the Dalrymple Bay case.     

完善系统化取装流程移舱工艺

系统化取装流程作业线因其诸多优点在港口散货码头广泛应用。但因移舱对生产有一定影响。为此进行了改造,提出了优化装卸工艺的解决方案和实施方案的步骤。改造后,取得了节能、增效的效果。