Overseas trade vis-a-vis overseas shipping: Growth and performance in India (1999–2009)

Maritime trade has been and even continues to account for about a lion's share of India's total cargo volumes. Despite the growth of multimodal transport (by land, water and air), shipping still continues to be the major mode of transport in the bulk carriage of country's overseas trade. In view of this vital role of shipping, in the first four decades of independence, under the initiative of planned development and active government support, India's shipping and port sector saw dramatic growth in their performance to build adequate national fleet, in keeping up with the transport of overseas cargo. However, the onset of economic liberalization in 1991 has given rise to many new dimensions in the development of the shipping and port sector of the country with a significant redefinition of shipping and port services, in response to the new global trend patterns. For instance, it has also established the new era of containerization in the mode of cargo delivery from the dominance of the era of bulk and break-bulk trade during the decade of sixties and seventies. Moreover, as global competition increases, in response to this emerging trade patterns within this country, India's volume of traffic growth also increases manifold. So, India's shipping and port sectors need, significantly, to build up and furnish their capacity by increasing the frequency of this mode of transport i.e. the growth of the national overseas fleet to meet this surging demand. This paper, therefore, have focused on this role of shipping in such rising overseas trade, with a view to examine the shipping performance (the growth of overseas fleet) in response to the growing overseas trade at all ports of India during the period (1999–2000 to 2008–2009), in terms of both a mathematical model and a graphical representation. Finally, it concludes that the absolute overseas trade, being highly import dependent, have led to a more or less stagnant performance in overseas shipping, owing to the lack of the adequate growth of absolute overseas exports during this period.     

A study of factors influencing the severity of road crashes involving drunk drivers and non drunk drivers

In this study, an attempt has been made to develop Multinomial Logit (MNL) model by analysing the drunken and non drunken drivers involved in road crashes on Indian highways. Multinomial Logit model has been deployed to assess the influence of various parameters like vehicular, environment and geometric factors on the set of drivers who were found to be drunk at the time of getting involved in the road crash and those who were not under the influence of alcohol at the time of meeting with the road crash. The total economic cost of road crashes in the case of non-drunk driver road crash is Rs. 1046.27 million whereas in the case of drunk driver road crashes it is estimated to be Rs. 204.50 million. Further, it can be observed that economic cost of drunk driver road crashes is varying from 13 to 19 % across different types of road crashes.     

Value creation in the port: opening the boundaries to the market

In the era of fierce competition among ports as elements of value chain systems, the opening of the boundaries to the market represents a crucial challenge that port authority has to cope with, in order to guarantee a lasting economic and social development of the port and its hinterland. We propose a theoretical framework to analyse value creation in the port and its hinterland through two core concepts: resource allocation and interaction. We illustrate such framework with the case of the port of Naples and, specifically, the contribution of the port authority and other port business operators to the value creation process of Garofalo, an export-oriented firm located in its hinterland. A discussion and suggestions for future research are provided in the last section.     

半约束模型试验--一种验证随浪和斜浪中波浪力计算的手段

本文采用半约束模型试验技术，对一条高速船在规则波中随浪和斜浪工况进行了流体动力系列试验，以探讨航运的安全性，验证作用于船体上波浪力的估算方法。对每次试验，以波动方程的形式采用数值估算方法确定环绕船模的波浪运动的时间历程。并用同样的方法从测量数据中提取垂荡和纵摇与模型测量运动，一阶波导纵荡、横荡作用力和首摇力矩。因此合理比较理论计算的波浪力与力矩的时间历程成为可能。这表明SSPA海事动力学的研究所(MDL)模型试验设施可以提供高质量的测量，与所述计算方法结合起来可用来验证理论计算和建立半经验方法。     

京沪线南翔牵引变电所有源无源混合补偿方案

介绍了采用低压侧两相式有源与无源混合补偿方案,可以有效降低补偿装置的补偿容量,减小补偿装置的体积,并将该方案实际应用于工程实践,仿真结果验证了补偿方案的正确性与有效性,该装置已投入运行,为新补偿方案在国内推广应用奠定了基础。     

浅谈客运专线大张力放线施工技术

对郑西客运专线接触网专业放线作业过程进行了认真仔细的分析,尤其是对大张力放线技术和以往普通小张力放线进行了对比,从中提出了一些相对新的看法。     

集宁站到发场高速锁用止轮顶的应用和探讨

根据集宁站到发场的线路条件和现场作业现状,提出在站内到发线上安装TDJGST-202型高速锁闭止轮顶来解决车辆溜逸的办法,并通过计算分析,提供一个科学合理的停车顶安装方案。通过一年来的运用和实践,介绍了停车顶检修、养护方面的经验和方法,为停车顶的进一步推广应用发挥着重要的作用。     

铁路客专信号产品灌封技术的研究

比较各种灌封材料的优缺点,研究在铁路客专信号产品生产中应用硅树脂凝胶灌封的关键工艺,包括PCBA表面清洁、温度控制、配方管理和控制、抽真空、灌封有效期管理和固化过程管理等,特别提出灌封有效期管理的新观点,并进行实践和总结。     

A multiobjective model for maximizing fleet availability under the presence of flight and maintenance requirements

Every aircraft, military or civilian, must be grounded for maintenance after it has completed a certain number of flight hours since its last maintenance check. In this paper, we address the problem of deciding which available aircraft should fly and for how long, and which grounded aircraft should perform maintenance operations, in a group of aircraft that comprise a combat unit. The objective is to achieve maximum availability of the unit over the planning horizon. We develop a multiobjective optimization model for this problem, and we illustrate its application and solution on a real life instance drawn from the Hellenic Air Force. We also propose two heuristic approaches for solving large scale instances of the problem. We conclude with a discussion that gives insight into the behavior of the model and of the heuristics, based on the analysis of the results obtained.     

The effect of the competition between cars and trucks on the evolution of the motorway transport system

Motorways, which were devised at the beginning of their history as dedicated roads intended to be traveled by cars only, are at present also traveled by considerable flows of trucks. This fact has deeply changed the motorway transport system with respect to its original conception, owing to the interactions between two categories of vehicles whose characteristics are very different. These interactions greatly increase the transport cost perceived by car drivers with respect to truck drivers. This paper studies the consequences of this cost asymmetry on the evolution of the transport system when the geometric characteristics of a motorway remain unchanged in time, while transport demand increases. By using a theoretical model of competition between cars and trucks, it is shown that, if both the geometric characteristics of a motorway and the increase rate of the activities that feed the transport demand remain unchanged over time, the competition between cars and trucks, as well as the fact that in general passengers have better transport alternatives than freight, make the increase rate of truck traffic greater than that of cars, causing a progressive increase in the proportion of trucks in the time periods in which a motorway is traveled by both the vehicle categories. Since truck traffic on motorways, at least in Europe, is very scarce on weekends and in holiday periods, in which motorways are traveled almost only by cars, these results seem to indicate a tendency to the specialization of motorways, which are likely to be used in the future mostly by only one category of vehicles in different periods of time.