Port competitiveness in container traffic from an internal point of view: the experience of the Port of Algeciras Bay

The objective of this article is to analyse the factors that affect port competitiveness from the perspective of the agents and companies that operate in one of the Mediterranean ports most active in container traffic: the Port of Algeciras Bay (PAB). It is essential to understand the perspective of the suppliers of port services, in order to apply the necessary judgment when formulating policies to strengthen the competitive position of a port. The model selected to meet the objective outlined is based on the 'extended diamond' of Porter. The universe for the study comprises all the institutions and companies involved in the containerization process in the Port of Algeciras Bay. Within this methodology, two procedures are utilised. First, from the quantitative perspective, a survey has been conducted to obtain responses to two groups of questions, one dealing with situation and the other with perceptions. Second, and from a qualitative perspective, several open interviews have been conducted to corroborate the responses obtained to the questionnaire. From the data obtained in the survey, a model has been estimated that minimises the sum of the residuals in absolute value, utilizing the L1 regression; this model enables the competitive advantages and disadvantages of the PAB, from the point of view of the port operators, to be determined by an analysis of residuals. This analysis demonstrates that the variables representing greater competitive advantages are associated with trans-shipment, and with the maritime accessibility of the Port to vessels, whereas those generating greater disadvantages are associated with rail transport (which, according to those surveyed, has resulted in the diversion of significant volumes of traffic to other Spanish or European ports with better communications, particularly Valencia, Barcelona and Gioia-Tauro, and with the state of competition in container trans-shipment activities.     

The competitiveness of short sea shipping in multimodal logistics supply chains: service attributes

Much has been written and spoken about short sea shipping within the European Union (EU) as a means of shifting goods from road to sea and of achieving a sustainable economic development. However, this shift is far from being a general reality, despite the few individual, and success stories that have taken place and the EUROSTAT data suggest that the overall effort has contributed very little towards attaining this desired shift. In the light of this, research was conducted to discover how to put short sea shipping on a more competitive level within European multimodal logistics supply chains. This paper aims at identifying service attributes of short sea shipping operations within multimodal transport chains by means of a questionnaire and, for that, examines the short sea shipping environment and contemporary European logistics trends. The analysis is based on empirical research, involving logistics operators, shippers' associations and intermodal rail operators, and allows an evaluation (based on statistical techniques) of the short sea shipping industry and its competitors. It extends previous work by considering these short sea shipping attributes within a multimodal transport context.     

Surface intersection in geometric modeling of ship hulls

In this work a methodology is presented for the computation of the intersection of parametric surfaces, namely Non Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS), with special attention to some specific requirements for applications to ship hull modeling. The algorithm adopted and the steps of the proposed method are described, namely checking whether the surfaces intersect, preprocessing of linear surfaces with strong discontinuities, computation of starting points, marching along intersection curves, and approximation of the intersections with NURBS curves. Finally, the results of some intersection tests are presented and discussed. The results are validated by comparison with results of commercial codes.     

Fatigue life prediction of welded ship details

Ship structures are submitted to variable cyclic loading during navigation. The cyclic motion of waves induces variable and complex loadings in the structure, which could generate fatigue damage. Moreover, most of these metallic structures are welded assemblies. This technique generates local stress concentrations at the weld toe, which becomes a critical area regarding fatigue. In previous works, a methodology to predict fatigue life was developed and tested on butt-welded and cruciform joints. The present work focuses on other welded assemblies in order to extend fatigue crack initiation life evaluation to a wider range of ship details. The strategy could be split into two steps. First, a finite element calculation is performed under constant or variable amplitude loadings, in order to analyze the elastic shakedown of the structure. To characterize the material heterogeneity of the welded joint, experimental tests together with micro-hardness measurements, are performed on a simulated heat-affected zone. If there is a shakedown in the structure, a post-treatment is applied to predict the fatigue crack initiation. It is based on a two-scale damage model, initially developed by Lemaitre et al. and again includes the heterogeneity of fatigue properties. To validate this methodology, some experimental tests have been performed on welded assemblies which are typical of shipbuilding applications, using a fatigue machine. These comparisons between experimental and numerical fatigue lives are encouraging.     

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.     

Nature or nurture: why do railroads carry greater freight share in the United States than in Europe?

During the 1950s, the share of freight carried by railroads was similar and declining in both the United States and Europe. By 2000, the railroads’ share of freight (measured in ton–kilometers) had reached 38% in the United States while falling to 8% in Europe. This paper examines the reasons for the difference in rail’s share of freight in Europe and the United States. We find that almost 83% of the gap in 2000 is probably due to natural or inherent differences, principally geography, shipment distance, and commodity mix. However, 17% of the gap cannot be explained by these inherent differences and is presumably due to public policies including priority of passenger service, lack of interoperability at borders, service quality and rates, and incentives of the rail operators. We estimate that if that policy gap were closed, railroads’ share of freight in Europe would increase from 8% to 13%.

A Note on the Behaviour of the Number Field Sieve in the Medium Prime Case: Smoothness of Norms

As we examine the behaviour of the number field sieve (NFS) in the medium prime case, we notice various patterns that can be exploited to improve the running time of the sieving stage. The contributions of these observations to the computational mathematics community are twofold. Firstly, we clarify the understanding of the true practical effectiveness of the algorithm. Secondly, we propose a test for a better choice of the polynomials used in the NFS. These results are of particular interest to cryptographers as the run-time of the NFS directly determines the security level of some discrete logarithm problem based protocols.     

Effectiveness of safety-based incentives in Public Private Partnerships: Evidence from the case of Spain

Many countries around the world are implementing Public–Private–Partnership (PPP) contacts to manage road infrastructure. In some of these contracts the public sector introduces economic incentives to the private operator to foster the accomplishment of social goals. One of the incentives that have been introduced in some PPP contracts is related to safety in such a way that the better the safety outcome the greater will be the economic reward to the contractor. The aim of this paper is at identify whether the incentives to improve road safety in highway PPPs are ultimately effective in improving safety ratios. To this end Poisson and negative binomial regression models have been applied using information from highway sections in Spain. The findings indicate that even though road safety is highly influenced by variables that are not much controllable by the contractor such as the Average Annual Daily Traffic and the percentage of heavy vehicles, the implementation of safety incentives in PPPs has a positive influence in the reduction of fatalities, injuries and accidents.     

马德里:城市地下公路与铁路基础设施安全高效发展的全球典范

马德里已经成为城市地下公路与铁路基础设施安全高效发展的一个全球典范.作为改善城市交通系统与公共运输网络的有效投资典范,文章详细介绍了过去12年中地铁网络的发展以及目前M-30环线改建项目情况,分析总结了马德里获得成功的关键因素.