Online public deliberation for a regional transportation improvement decision

This paper investigates the potential for deliberation as a means for public participation in shaping public policy. The paper begins with a summary of deliberative democracy and other concepts that recently have motivated an interest for online deliberation. Next, the paper describes a case study in which 133 public participants deliberated over a regional transportation improvement decision. The deliberation occurred entirely over the internet and lasted for 31 days. The participants wrote hundreds of posts (comments) and made thousands of post-ratings (statements of agreement or disagreement). The posts and three questionnaires are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to assess the nature of the deliberation and the participants’ perception of their experience. A negative binomial regression is used to examine which participant characteristics are associated with writing more posts.     

How to turn an innovative concept into a success? An application to seaport-related innovation

The main objective of this paper is ‘to assess the conditions, including policy support, under which innovative concepts have a high chance of getting adopted and being successful’. The work will start from the state-of-the-art with the following goals targeted. Firstly, to identify the paths that new innovative concepts usually follow, what key determinants are, which actors are involved, and what policy has been doing and can do. As part of this, a typology of variables is established, which will be the basis for the identification of successful adoption paths. Illustrations are provided of the performance of different innovative concepts in the seaport sector. A further goal is to propose policy recommendations, identify best practices, barriers to implementation and transferability of innovative concepts and processes. Finally, the research establishes developments needed in assessment methods and a methodological framework if innovative concepts are introduced.     

The decline of the U.K. merchant fleet: an assessment of government policies in recent years—a rejoinder to Goss's comment

In recent years, the Hong Kong port has been challenged by the emergence of the Shenzhen port. This gives rise to a concern that the high terminal handling charges (THC) levied by the Hong Kong terminal operators are undermining the competitiveness of the Hong Kong port. As the major container terminals in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen are operated by the Hong Kong terminal operators, the monopoly power of these operators is commonly believed to be the cause of the high THC in Hong Kong. The theoretical model developed in this study shows that the trigger point mechanism (TPM) used by the Hong Kong Government to control the supply of terminal capacity may be a source of such monopoly power. Two possible scenarios are considered in the model—Scenario 1 in which expansion of capacity is unconstrained (i.e. the Shenzhen port); and Scenario 2 in which expansion of capacity is constrained by TPM (i.e. the Hong Kong port). Under TPM, the Hong Kong Government commits not to grant the right to build new container terminals unless and until the demand for container handling services exceeds the current capacity by a certain amount, which provides the incumbent operators incentives to invest preemptively in excess capacity in order to block the entry of potential entrants. This model is supported by the empirical findings from this study. The results from this study suggest an urgent need for the Hong Kong Government to overhaul the current port development policy as a part of the effort to promote economic integration between Hong Kong and the Mainland China.     

From Titanic to Costa Concordia—a century of lessons not learned

The recent foundering of the Costa Concordia in January 2012 demonstrated that accidents can occur even with ships that are considered masterpieces of modern technology and despite more than 100?years of regulatory and technological progress in maritime safety. The purpose of this paper is, however, not to speculate about the concrete causes of the Costa Concordia accident, but rather to consider some human and organizational factors that were present in the Costa Concordia accident as well as in the foundering of the Titanic a century ago, and which can be found in many other maritime accidents over the years. The paper argues that these factors do not work in isolation but in combination and often together with other underlying factors. The paper critically reviews the focus of maritime accident investigations and points out that these factors do not receive sufficient attention. It is argued that the widespread confidence in the efficacy of new or improved technical regulations, that characterizes the recommendations from most maritime accident investigations, has led to a lack of awareness of complex interactions of factors and components in socio-technical systems. If maritime safety is to be sustainably improved, a systemic focus must be adopted in future accident investigations.     

An empirical investigation on the dynamic processes of activity scheduling and trip chaining

Investigation of the dynamic processes of activity scheduling and trip chaining has been an interest of transportation researchers over the past decade because of its relevance to the effectiveness of congestion management and intelligent transportation systems. To empirically examine the processes, a computerized survey instrument is developed to collect household activity scheduling data. The instrument is unique in that it records the evolution of activity schedules from intentions to final outcomes for a weekly period. This paper summarizes the investigation on the dynamic processes of activity scheduling and trip chaining based on data collected from a pilot study of the instrument. With the data, ordered logit models are applied to identify factors that are pertinent to the scheduling horizon of activities. Results of the empirical analysis show that a daily schedule often starts with certain activities occupying a portion of the schedule and other activities are then arranged around these pre-occupants. Activities of shorter duration are more likely to be opportunistically inserted in a schedule already anchored by their longer duration counterparts. Persons with children often expect more constraining activities than those with no children. The analysis also shows that female respondents tend to be more structured in terms of how the week is planned. Additionally, analysis of travel patterns reveals that many trip-chains are formed opportunistically. Travel time required to reach an activity is positively related to the scheduling horizon for the activity, with more distant stops being planned earlier than closer locations.     

Modeling park 'n ride and kiss 'n ride as submodal choices

The logit modeling methodology is applied to include transit access mode choices in conjunction with the automobile vs. transit travel choice decision. The practical problems that arise when the choice set expands beyond two alternatives are identified and addressed. In particular, the complexities that must be resolved in order to use ULOGIT or a similar program include the definition of independent choices (the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Property (IIA)), a sequential binary or multinomial logit model (MNL) structure, specification and testing of variables, and the potential for transferring the model to new areas for transportation planning purposes. It was found that the available options cannot be reduced to a single modeling strategy. However, the analysis showed certain concepts which can reduce the uncertainties in related applications of the logit model. It was determined that as many independent choices as possible should be hypothesized and tested for inclusion in the model, but the IIA must be carefully considered because it limits the number of choices that can be represented. Although binary calibration techniques are conceptually appealing, the large number of calibrations for studies involving more than three alternatives suggests that the MNL approach is most practical. Application of the MNL model requires that not only must variables be selected that best explain choice, but they must also be placed in the disutility function of the specific mode or modes to which they are most unique. Finally, it was shown that if choice sets and homogeneous market segments are properly defined, the models can be transferred among different urban areas even though the urban areas exhibit different aggregate characteristics. All observations lead to the general conclusion that the logit modeling methodology can now best be advanced with implementation experience.