Emerging organizational values in shipping: Part 1. Crew stability

In this paper, Smith and Roggema examine the solutions emerging in answer to the growing concern in North European shipping companies to adapt to increasing competition and technological diversity and also to attract and retain suitably qualified seafarers. Part 1 describes a move from a situation of lack of stability of crew towards greater crew stability, whilst Part 2 discusses the redistribution of responsibility on board ship, encompassing a change from the caste-like division between officers and ratings and a more flexible division of functions and authority.     

Development of multimodal performance measures for transit systems in New York State

The New York State Department of Transportation was required to certify as to the economy and efficiency of transit operators participating in the State's public transportation operating assistance program. This paper describes the efforts undertaken to meet this mandate.Discussed are past efforts to link performance measures to funding programs; reasons for modifying measures which had been used in previous efforts; and some of the problems and issues raised by the use of such criteria. The paper identifies 15 performance measures being used by New York State in its evaluations, the actual ranges encountered in the transit operations being funded through the state program, and tentative acceptable and desirable levels of those measures which the Transportation Department is using in its evaluation. The role these measures play in the state's operating assistance policy decision process is also described.     

重载货车径向转向架的经济效益及其性能

介绍了Resco Engineering公司研发的货车用构架式径向转向架.经AAR试验表明,与常规转向架及性能良好的转向架相比,Resco径向转向架的曲线通过能力非常优越,动力学稳定性极好.从经济效益角度,概述了采用Resco径向转向架所能产生的一系列节约效果.     

Exploring the effects of passenger rail franchising in Britain: Evidence from the first two rounds of franchising (1997-2008)

This paper provides an up-to-date review of the previous literature concerning the impact of passenger rail franchising on productivity and costs in Britain, and also presents important new evidence. In particular, the extension in time of previously-used datasets offers the first opportunity to study the impacts of re-franchising. The previous literature emphasised the failure of franchising to produce sustained productivity gains, with a sharp deterioration in productivity after 2000. The new evidence presented offers a somewhat more positive view of the British experience. It suggests that part of what was previously considered to be falling productivity may in fact be due to exogenous changes in diesel prices. Further, new data suggests that the recent increases in costs have resulted in higher quality of service. Finally, competitive re-franchising, and the associated unwinding of short-term management and re-negotiated contracts, seems to have led to improvements in productivity between 2006 and 2008. Nevertheless, it remains the case that passenger rail franchising in Britain has failed to reduce costs in the way experienced in many other industries and in rail in other European countries. The evidence is that somewhat larger franchises, avoiding overlapping and optimising train density and length, should reduce costs. We also speculate that the major increase in wages and conditions of staff might be moderated by longer franchises, although that remains to be proved. This re-appraisal of the British case is important in the context of the wider international interest in the use of franchising in passenger rail, and its relevance to the current review of ways of introducing competition into the domestic rail passenger market in Europe.     

Accident cost saving and highway attributes

Two semi-logarithmic regression models are developed to estimate accident rates and accident costs, respectively, for rural non-interstate highways in the state of Iowa. Data on 21,224 accidents occurring between 1989 and 1991 on 17,767 road segments are used in the analysis. Seven road attributes of these road segments are included as predictor variables. Applying the resulting regression models to a rather typical highway upgrade situation, the present value of the accident cost saving is computed. The sensitivity of the estimated cost saving to values for fatal, personal injury, and property damage only accidents is tested.Because factors other than road characteristics greatly influence accident costs, the models developed in this research explain a limited amount of the variance in these costs among road segments. Results of the analysis indicate that the most important attribute associated with accident costs is average daily traffic per lane, followed by conditions requiring passing restrictions and the sharpness of curves. Varying the values for the three categories of accidents shows that results are far more sensitive to the value of personal injuries than fatalities. The feasibility of using predictive models of accident costs in benefit-cost analyses of highway investments is demonstrated.     

Model coastal zone statute

Abstract

This model statute sets out a mechanism for the management of the coastal zone by the coastal states. It provides a possible state response to the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972. The authors recognize that most states presently have some form of management or legal control over their coastal zone, and the model statute has been written with the intention that all or parts of it could be adapted to the wide variety of state regulatory schemes with the aim of providing unitary management to the valuable resource of the coastal zone.     

A structural analysis of vehicle design responses to Corporate Average Fuel Economy policy

The US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations are intended to influence automaker vehicle design and pricing choices. CAFE policy has been in effect for the past three decades, and new legislation has raised standards significantly. We present a structural analysis of automaker responses to generic CAFE policies. We depart from prior CAFE analyses by focusing on vehicle design responses in long-run oligopolistic equilibrium, and we view vehicles as differentiated products, taking demand as a general function of price and product attributes. We find that under general cost, demand, and performance functions, single-product profit maximizing firm responses to CAFE standards follow a distinct pattern: firms ignore CAFE when the standard is low, treat CAFE as a vehicle design constraint for moderate standards, and violate CAFE when the standard is high. Further, the point and extent of first violation depends upon the penalty for violation, and the corresponding vehicle design is independent of further standard increases. Thus, increasing CAFE standards will eventually have no further impact on vehicle design if the penalty for violation is also not increased. We implement a case study by incorporating vehicle physics simulation, vehicle manufacturing and technology cost models, and a mixed logit demand model to examine equilibrium powertrain design and price decisions for a fixed vehicle body. Results indicate that equilibrium vehicle design is not bound by current CAFE standards, and vehicle design decisions are directly determined by market competition and consumer preferences. We find that with increased fuel economy standards, a higher violation penalty than the current stagnant penalty is needed to cause firms to increase their design fuel economy at equilibrium. However, the maximum attainable improvement can be modest even if the penalty is doubled. We also find that firms’ design responses are more sensitive to variation in fuel prices than to CAFE standards, within the examined ranges.