Towards improved port capacity investment decisions under uncertainty: a real options approach

ABSTRACT

Port activity plays an important role in facilitating international trade. Sufficient capacity is indispensable for a port to attract flows to a region and retain them. The capacity decision is the result of a trade-off between investment and waiting costs. Traditional methods to value expansion projects do not deal adequately with managerial flexibility in the face of uncertainty from different sources in the complex port environment. In this paper, real options (RO) models are identified as an alternative method to making project valuations and investment decisions, as they attribute the correct value to managerial flexibility under uncertainty. In order to be able to build and use such RO models for port capacity investment decisions, the sources and implications of uncertainty in the port and the different RO model specifications need to be understood. To this end, both the literature about uncertainty in the port context and the literature about real options models are reviewed in order to provide researchers who want to build their own decision-making models, with the necessary knowledge of both fields. The review makes clear that the complex interactions in and competition between the logistics chains and their actors coming together in ports have significant impacts on port capacity. Uncertainty is also caused by uncertain international trade flows and changes in legislation following new technologies and environmental impacts. An analysis of the components of some general RO models shows how the options of flexible output, investment size and timing are valued by RO models in a setting with demand uncertainty. Moreover, the review presents researchers with insights in how to deal with cooperative and competitive interactions in the chain, time to build, cyclical markets and legislation changes. It also shows how to value the expansion and the phased investment options. The new insights resulting from this review are subsequently combined in a framework that serves as a guideline to build RO models for port capacity investments. Finally, an exemplifying application of the framework is used to build an actual port capacity investment decision model.     

A proposal for cost-related and market-oriented train running charges

This paper examines some key aspects of a charging system for promoting railway transport, including charges reflecting a clear relationship with costs (transparency) and charges reflecting the quality of the infrastructure manager's service. Train running charges recover track-related costs and can help to develop a charging system that meets these requirements. To orient train running charges to the market, a method for processing track maintenance and renewal costs is proposed whereby the quality of the service provided by an infrastructure is measured according to its utility to the railway undertaking. To achieve transparency, a single indicator is used for cost planning and the subsequent levying of costs on railway undertakings. The paper includes an example of how proposed train running charges would be calculated according to data from 14 European countries. The example shows that short-distance trains generate the lowest maintenance and renewal costs, followed by long-distance trains and freight trains.     

A fuzzy stochastic approach to the multicriteria selection of an aircraft for regional chartering

This article deals with the problem of decision support for the selection of an aircraft. This is a problem faced by an airline company that is investing in regional charter flights in Brazil. The company belongs to an economic group whose core business is logistics. The problem has eight alternatives to be evaluated under 11 different criteria, whose measurements can be exact, stochastic, or fuzzy. The technique chosen for analyzing and then finding a solution to the problem is the multicriteria decision aiding method named NAIADE (Novel Approach to Imprecise Assessment and Decision Environments). The method used allows tackling the problems by working with quantitative as well as qualitative criteria under uncertainty and imprecision. Another considerable advantage of NAIADE over other multicriteria methods relies in its characteristics of not requiring a prior definition of the weights by the decision maker. As a conclusion, it can be said that the use of NAIADE provided for consistent results to that aircraft selection problem. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A long panel survey to elicit variation in preferences and attitudes in the choice of electric vehicles

This paper describes the methodology we set up to gather appropriate data to study the impact of real life experience with electric vehicles (EVs) over a relatively long period of time on individual preferences and attitudes. We used stated choices (SC) to elicit individual preferences because EVs and their associated charging infrastructure are not yet fully integrated onto the market. Furthermore, to measure the extent to which the experience of using an EV may affect individual preferences and attitudes, we set up a “long panel” survey, where data was gathered before and after individuals experienced an EV in real life during a three-month period. We also measured attitudinal effects (AE) that might affect the choice of an EV by individuals. To our knowledge, this represents the first example of a “long panel” SC/AE and the first attempt to measure the formation of preferences and attitudes for this emerging product. Our results show that preferences and attitudes are indeed affected by real life experience. In the SC experiment, the respondents only chose the EV half as often as compared to the situation where they had not yet tried it. Furthermore, we measured a change in attitude for statements regarding the use of EVs. On the whole, respondents got a more positive view of the EV driving performance and this change is significantly greater for women than for men. However, respondents expressed more concern about being able to maintain current mobility with an EV. The data gathered in this survey should also serve to analyse the changes generated by direct experience with EVs, and eventually to formulate and estimate advanced discrete choice models that allow insights into factors relevant for improved understanding of market behaviour.     

SIMPLE METHOD OF PUNCHING AND RE-LOCATING TISSUES FOR MANUAL CONSTRUCTION OF TISSUE MICROARRAY

A series of human tissue samples and cultured cell lines were formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded. Specimen cylinder ( 1.2 - 1.8mm) were punched by a modified bone marrow biopsy needle and arrayed on a recipient paraffin block. Microscopic analysis on the sections from this tissue microarray (TMA) block demonstrated that the spots of tissues and cells were well preserved, and the cultured cell samples were successfully embedded from 5 × 104 to 2 × 105 in number. These TMA sections were also suitable for immunohistochemistry and RNA in situ hybridization.     

On the effect of operational service attributes on transit satisfaction

Public transport (PT) providers aim to offer services that meet users’ satisfaction, and for this, they can control some operational service attributes such as frequency, speed, crowdedness and reliability. Understanding how these objective attributes affect user satisfaction is essential to improve it cost-effectively, but these associations have not been examined enough in the PT literature. This study aims to unveil how key transit operational variables actually experienced by users affect their satisfaction. We analysed data derived from a multiannual consumer satisfaction survey for the Santiago de Chile Metro system; between January 2013 and June 2016 (n?=?41,993), where approximately 1000 questionnaires were completed each month. We also gained access to a set of operational variables managed by Metro for the same period, including more than 1.4 million records. With this unique dataset, we first developed a structural equation model (SEM) with users’ perceived attributes, finding that safety, ease of boarding, response to critical incidents (CI), the number and type of CI endured, and information, were the variables that mostly affected satisfaction. We also examined heterogeneity in transit satisfaction with SEM-MIMIC models, by characterising the user population through their trip and socioeconomic characteristics, finding a striking result: that as users age they are more satisfied with the system. Next, we assessed whether including operational service attributes, such as crowding levels, frequency, commercial speed and CI, added predictive power to the proposed model. We found that the number of CI, speed, frequency and crowdedness, plus their variability (measured through the coefficient of variation), affected transit satisfaction at significant levels. Including these objective service attributes provided more explanatory power to the SEM-MIMIC transit satisfaction models. Policy recommendations for improving satisfaction, derived from our results, are: to implement an automatic control system for the number of passengers on Metro platforms (as safety and ease of boarding are critical issues for passengers); and to deploy a comprehensive tactical plan to address CI: determine which happen more often, take actions to minimise them and provide better responsive actions.

     

Existence,relatedness and growth needs as mediators between mode choice and travel satisfaction: evidence from Denmark

Transportation - Understanding the link between mode choice and travel satisfaction is essential for promoting sustainable travel by expanding utility theory to include also the eudaimonic value of...     

Development and Evaluation of Vehicle Simulation Models for a 4WS Application

In the scope of the European Prometheus project a passenger car with active rear wheel steering was developed by TNO in cooperation with PSA. During development and engineering of the rear wheel steering system simulation tools have been used to reduce development costs. This paper describes the evaluation of different simulation models, from simple to complex, with results of full vehicle driving tests. The optimal balance for model complexity and accuracy was achieved with a 2-dimensional model with an added roll degree of freedom. The results show that validation using time responses can give ambiguous and inaccurate results, and that frequency response functions are much more usable in validation.