Characterizing,measuring, and managing transit service quality

Recent studies to evaluate the quality of transit service are generating a good amount of renewed interest in an old idea, the passenger's perspective; this new interest stems from recognizing that transit service quality should be characterised, measured, and managed by parameters capturing both passenger and transit operator perspectives. However, although the selected parameters are user‐oriented in their input, the output may not be as user‐oriented as considered, and the number or the percentage of passengers is often neglected. As a result, the findings are often misleading because the perspectives of transit operators dominate. Therefore, academics and practitioners must rethink their strategies of quality analysis of public transportation by stressing more on the role of passengers. These challenges are addressed in this paper with a practical, simple, and holistic framework, for Transit Quality (TRANSQUAL). This framework provides for the involvement of all stakeholders in the characterisation, measurement, and management of the stages of quality monitoring, which is jointly analyzed at different planning levels. In the characterization stage, the framework supports the selection of parameters to be monitored. The measurement stage sets and measures four quality areas in terms of percentage of passengers who expect a predefined level of service, for whom the service is designed, who receive the planned service, and who perceive the service as delivered. The management stage computes the differences between these percentages, points out criticalities, and recommends corrective actions. These stages are investigated in‐depth, integrated, and discussed in a real‐life case study. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Market structures and competitive strategies: the carrier–stevedore arm-wrestling in northern European ports

Over the last few years, liner and stevedoring markets have been facing new challenges. The progressive concentration on the demand side (carriers) and the emergence of global alliances in the mid-1990s have triggered a similar process of consolidation on the supply side (stevedores). In turn, more recently, the strategic choices of pure terminal operators have led to the progressive involvement of carriers in port operations, both from a financial and a managerial point of view. This paper aims at analysing the current contest in northern Europe between customers and suppliers of port services. Substantial concentration in the stevedoring market and the emergence of dedicated facilities in that area, make this arm-wrestling stronger and stronger.

At present, the liner market is following a number of strategic directions including the pursuit of economies of scale (larger vessels) and the supply of services using faster vessels (deployment of ‘fewer’ assets) in order to offer either new services or additional loops (scope). By exploring the strategic behaviours of the top carriers (‘bigger’ or ‘more effective’), the paper attempts to outline the future evolution of the two industries in a 2015 vision, highlighting in particular scenarios for north European ports. Global alliances are weakening and a new era of M&As is probably approaching: how will the bargaining power change between port users and port customers? Which competitive paradigm will dominate?     

Refrigerated container versus bulk: evidence from the banana cold chain

During the last 20 years, the reefer shipping sector has been characterised by a gradual changing process, leading from specialised vessels to reefer containers. In fact, the reefer bulk fleet has experienced an irreversible decline, while the reefer container fleet has shown a continuous growth. This article investigates the current major factors shaping the reefer shipping industry, in order to understand the economic drivers inducing competition between bulk and containers. Therefore, a twofold analysis has been performed. First, an overview of the reefer market, including the cold chain, the demand for refrigerated products and the supply of reefer capacity given both by containership fleet and by conventional reefer fleet. Second, a specific case of the banana trade has been carried out for evaluating the revenues of each player involved in the banana cold chain followed by a cost analysis. The results reveal the market tendencies, focusing on the main sources of competition for bulk versus container.     

Calibrating aggregate travel demand models with traffic counts: Estimators and statistical performance

Traffic counts on network links constitute an information source on travel demand which is easy to collect, cheap and repeatable. Many models proposed in recent years deal with the use of traffic counts to estimate Origin/Destination (O/D) trip matrices under different assumptions on the type of "a-priori" information available on the demand (surveys, outdated estimates, models, etc.) and the type of network and assignment mapping (see Cascetta & Nguyen 1988). Less attention has been paid to the possibility of using traffic counts to estimate the parameters of demand models. In this case most of the proposed methods are relative to particular demand model structures (e.g. gravity-type) and the statistical analysis of estimator performance is not thoroughly carried out. In this paper a general statistical framework defining Maximum Likelihood, Non Linear Generalized Least Squares (NGLS) and Bayes estimators of aggregated demand model parameters combining counts-based information with other sources (sample or a priori estimates) is proposed first, thus extending and generalizing previous work by the authors (Cascetta & Russo 1992). Subsequently a solution algorithm of the projected-gradient type is proposed for the NGLS estimator given its convenient theoretical and computational properties. The algorithm is based on a combination of analytical/numerical derivates in order to make the estimator applicable to general demand models. Statistical performances of the proposed estimators are evaluated on a small test network through a Monte Carlo method by repeatedly sampling "starting estimates" of the (known) parameters of a generation/distribution/modal split/assignment system of models. Tests were carried out assuming different levels of "quality" of starting estimates and numbers of available counts. Finally NGLS estimator was applied to the calibration of the described model system on the network of a real medium-size Italian town using real counts with very satisfactory results in terms of both parameter values and counted flows reproduction.     

Seaports and public intervention

Catherine the Great: 'Sir, can you tell me the best way to govern a state?'†     

Active yaw damper for the improvement of railway vehicle stability and curving performances: simulations and experimental results

To further increase passenger train comfort and handling performances, a mechatronic approach to the design of railway vehicles is necessary. In fact, active systems on board a railway vehicle allow to push design barriers beyond those encountered with just passive systems. The article deals with the development of an electro-mechanical actuator to improve the running behaviour of a railway vehicle, both in straight track and curve. The main components of the active system are a brushless motor and a mechanical transmission, used to apply a longitudinal force between the carbody and the bogie of the vehicle. The actuator is operated in force control. Different control strategies were developed for straight track running, where the aim is to increase the vehicle critical speed, and for curve negotiation, where the goal is to reduce the maximum values of track shift forces. A mathematical model of the railway vehicle incorporating the active control device has been developed and used to optimise control strategies and hardware set-up of the active device and to estimate the increase in operating performances with respect to a conventional passive vehicle. The active control device has then been mounted on an ETR470 railway vehicle, and its performances have been evaluated during in-line tests in both straight and curved tracks.     

Network economies in liner shipping: the role of home markets

This paper deals with the measurement of the network complexity of some selected shipping groups, also identifying the contribution of co-operative agreements among carriers. The empirical investigation is focused on: (i) the analysis of the distribution of the carrying capacity per range; and (ii) the comparison of that capacity with the throughput handled in the port facilities of the group. These variables are interpreted in the light of the impact that alliances have on the geographical wideness of the services supplied by each partner. This factor also allows to depict how the cultural and political origin of shipping lines affects the decision of joining an alliance and the outcomes deriving from such co-operation.     

Market structures and competitive strategies: the carrier-stevedore arm-wrestling in northern European ports

Over the last few years, liner and stevedoring markets have been facing new challenges. The progressive concentration on the demand side (carriers) and the emergence of global alliances in the mid-1990s have triggered a similar process of consolidation on the supply side (stevedores). In turn, more recently, the strategic choices of pure terminal operators have led to the progressive involvement of carriers in port operations, both from a financial and a managerial point of view. This paper aims at analysing the current contest in northern Europe between customers and suppliers of port services. Substantial concentration in the stevedoring market and the emergence of dedicated facilities in that area, make this arm-wrestling stronger and stronger.

At present, the liner market is following a number of strategic directions including the pursuit of economies of scale (larger vessels) and the supply of services using faster vessels (deployment of 'fewer' assets) in order to offer either new services or additional loops (scope). By exploring the strategic behaviours of the top carriers ('bigger' or 'more effective'), the paper attempts to outline the future evolution of the two industries in a 2015 vision, highlighting in particular scenarios for north European ports. Global alliances are weakening and a new era of M&As is probably approaching: how will the bargaining power change between port users and port customers? Which competitive paradigm will dominate?