A note on fare policy in personal rapid transit

The choice of fare policy is more flexible in personal rapid transit than in conventional transit and has some unique aspects. The implementation of fare policies as a function of distance are discussed, and, following a discussion of how the fare would be collected in a PRT system, consideration is given to whether the fare should be per person or per vehicle.     

The competitive environment of liner conferences

Although liner conferences are traditionally assumed to possess effective monopoly power, such a view ignores many important aspects of their competitive environment. This article examines some of these neglected competitive features and shows how they may decisively influence conference pricing strategies.

In the analysis of linear shipping, the notion that conferences are effective monopolists lies at the root of many of the grievances of the conference system. It has also become an integral part of the conventional wisdom of shipping economies, to such an extent that the monopoly power of conferences is virtually regarded as a matter of established fact rather than what it really is-namely a postulated assumption open to testing and refutation.

It is the purpose of this paper to explore the competitive conditions of the industry in which liner conferences operate and to try and establish the extent and limitations of their market power. This will involve an analysis of hte bariers to entry which conferences may be protected by, the manner in which the relevant industry should be defined, the possibility and consequences of new entry, and the response of conferences to their competitive environment.     

Candian port administraion: its future structre

The administration, management and development of ports in Canada is a Federal government responsibility. This centralist control of ports has been the subject of criticism by many for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it is not responsive enough to the affairs of the local level. This problem, along with others, has resulted in the introduction in the Canadian Parliament of proposed legislation over the past five years to alter port administration and development in Canada. The proposals culminated in the recent passage of the Canada Ports Corporation Act which, among other things, will see the abolition of the National Harbours Board. A review of the administrative structure the new Act replaces, along with a review and assessment of the Act itself and the proposed legislation which predated it, forms the basis of this paper. It will be seen that because of the new Act the centralist approach to port administration is maintained, but greater local autonomy and financial self-sufficiency will also be available to ports. However, the central administration will still have the problem of co-ordinating the development of Canadian ports, since ports will continue to be constituted under at least four different pieces of legislation.     

TRAMS: Transit route animation and modelling by simulation

Public transport managers and operators face increasingly difficult problems in providing adequate levels of service at reasonable social and financial costs. A greater demand exists for analytical techniques which allow them to evaluate changes in operational strategies before committing themselves to implementation in the field. This paper describes the development of a discrete event simulation model for the analysis of on-street transit routes. The structure of the model is described and details are provided of the types of events which are explicitly modelled in the TRAMS package. The input requirements are described, and the modular nature of the simulation model is highlighted. The various options for output format are described, including the use of a computer graphics real-time animation option. The range of output performance measures are then discussed, and some comments on areas of application conclude the paper.