Evaluating air emission inventories and indicators from cruise vessels at ports

This paper provides an estimation of air emissions (CO₂, NO_X, SO_X and PM) released by cruise vessels at the port level. The methodology is based on the “full bottom-up” approach and starts by evaluating the fuel consumed by each vessel on the basis of its individual port activities (manoeuvring, berthing and hoteling). The Port of Barcelona was selected as the site at which to perform the analysis, in which 125 calls of 30 cruise vessels were monitored. Real-time data from the automatic identification system (AIS), factor emissions from engine certificates and vessel characteristics from IHS Sea-web database were also collected for the analysis. The research findings show that the most appropriate indicators are inventory emissions per “port-time gross tonnage”, “port-time passenger” and “port time”. These emission indicators improve our understanding of cruise emissions and will facilitate the work that aims to estimate reliably and quickly the in-port ship emission inventories of cruise ports.     

Combining Lanekeeping and Vehicle Following with Hazard Maps

This paper addresses the issues involved with including moving obstacles in a hazard map or potential field framework for driver assistance systems. Under such a framework, control forces must consist of either conservative forces obtained from the gradient of a potential or artificial damping. By treating vehicle following as a combination of a safety distance and a hazard or potential function, common following strategies, such as constant time headway and guaranteed collision avoidance, can be incorporated into this framework without modification. When combining these fields with lateral potential fields for lanekeeping, however, challenges arise due to the natural asymmetry between the longitudinal and lateral velocity of a vehicle. For instance, a decision to change lanes while approaching a slow moving vehicle results in a large amount of undesirable energy transfer into the lateral dynamics. By treating the lateral and longitudinal hazards - described in road-fixed coordinates - as decoupled, however, such transfers can be eliminated. Because of the manner in which the lateral and longitudinal dynamics couple, control with decoupled hazard maps resembles the coupled case when following or lanekeeping while eliminating the problems associated with energy transfer. The paper concludes by discussing the characteristics of the dynamic equations that lead to this result and outlining future work in obtaining rigorous hazard bounds for the decoupled controller.     

Quality indicators and capacity calculation for RoRo terminals

Abstract

Road freight transportation has increased dramatically over recent years along with its impacts such as congestion, noise, and pollution. As a result, European and US governments have started policies to promote alternatives to road transportation, such as logistic chains containing a Short Sea Shipping (SSS) link. Road is, by definition, a more flexible means of transportation than shipping, which is usually cheaper. Therefore, to move traffic to SSS chains, it is necessary to provide fast, frequent, and reliable maritime transportation. In this sense, roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) vessels are the most convenient ships to be used, since they have smaller dwell times in port and, therefore, this is a kind of traffic likely to increase dramatically. The foreseeable increase of this kind of traffic must meet with an increase in the actual capacity by means of either improvement in performance and possible enlargements of existing terminals or the construction of new terminals. In that sense, this paper proposes a simple methodology to calculate the capacity of a RoRo terminal, whether already in operation or during its design process, and relate it to some quality standards by means of quality indicators, which should lead to the definition of Levels of Service similar to those already used in roads and airports. The paper ends by applying the methodology to a real terminal in Barcelona, Spain.     

Environmental rail charges in Europe: a review

European legislation implies the use of marginal social cost pricing in rail access charges levied on rail operators. Thus, they may include specific environmental charges to internalise the impacts of rail transport. However, when applying these principles in practice, several difficulties call for second-best settings adapted to the particularities of the rail market. In this context, few European railway administrations are already implementing rail access charges with an environmental dimension. This paper reviews the literature on the issue and assesses the current European experience in noise and air pollution rail charges. For this purpose, an analytical framework is built on the definition of four basic dimensions: charging approach, allocation of abatement efforts, degree of differentiation and intermodal approach. The qualitative examination of the existing systems suggests that the level of environmental surcharges can be generally increased given the low substitutability between rail and road and that the range of abatement possibilities should be enlarged by further differentiating charges. It is also found that the pricing scope should be adapted to achieve particular cost-efficient allocations of abatement efforts among rail operators and upstream agents. Finally, further research requirements for a quantitative assessment are defined.     

Short Sea Shipping in Supply Chains. A Strategic Assessment

The feasibility of implementing short sea shipping (SSS) between two specific ports has been typically approached on the operative level, in terms of time and cost for a specific origin–destination pair. This paper focuses on the strategic level. Particularly, its goal is to study the potential of SSS in different industrial sectors by analysing their freight-distribution strategies. To achieve the objective, some standard freight-distribution strategies are defined based on the requirements of the industry, the demand and the product being transported. The information is complemented with a survey of more than 100 Spanish companies distributing internationally. As a result it is concluded that there are economies of scale related to the size of the carrier (the ship) and its capacity to absorb the variability in demand. This potential increases with the cargo value. Additionally, a framework of supply/distribution chains is provided which can help to identify potential customers/sectors and the feasibility of new potential shipping lines. The value of this paper resides in its approach (strategic, instead of operational/tactical), and the solid groundwork point provided for future researchers.