Network structure and capacity requirement: The case of China

This paper analyzes capacity requirement by alternative network structures. Based on a simple model, it is concluded that the capacity required under a hub-and-spoke network would be more than twice as large as the capacity required under a fully connected network. In recent years, China has experienced unprecedented growth in the demand for air travel, which has put continuous pressure on the expansion in airport capacity. Still as a developing country, China suffers from insufficient investment in infrastructure. Therefore, given scarce capacity, it may be more efficient for the major air carriers not to adopt the hub-and-spoke network in Chinese domestic markets.     

Jobs-housing balance in an era of population decentralization: An analytical framework and a case study

Despite the well-established theoretical understanding on the benefits of compact cities to the attainment of sustainable transport goals, there has been a worldwide trend of population decentralization in cities. In this paper, an analytical framework, which can be applied to other cities to quantify the potential commuting travel savings and environmental benefits of different job policies in cities having different rates and patterns of population decentralization, is presented. A case study of Hong Kong in the 1992-2002 decade is used to illustrate the analytical framework. The findings suggest that a city’s population patterns did have significant implications on the commuting travel savings from alternative job relocation policies. With a dispersed population pattern, the expected environmental benefits from a job decentralization policy can be very substantial.     

Inter-urban competition and air transport in the deregulated era: The Nashville case

American cities are acting in a competitive environment as a result of forces like economic restructuring, capital mobility, and state devolution. Since the late 1970s, the federal government has dismantled the spatial boundaries of investment through the deregulation of several important sectors of the economy, including the airline industry. Transportation geographers have investigated how deregulation allowed airlines to develop a hub-and-spoke system. However, post-deregulation airline development has yet to be approached from the perspective of urban entrepreneurialism. Another layer of inter-urban competition has been added through new geographical patterns of airline investment, and capturing hub status through airport development may be especially valuable for mid-size cities. Most large cities have hub status, while small cities have no realistic chance of becoming major players in the air transportation network, thus making the hub an opportunity for mid-size cities. A case study of Nashville, Tennessee illuminates the strong local emphasis on airport expansion in the deregulated environment. Local business and government have been active and innovative, although not always successful, in policies that improve Nashville’s accessibility and position in the urban hierarchy.     

Port devolution revisited: the case of regional ports and the role of lower tier governments

Most models of port governance have been developed to fit the largest ports, and tend to simplify the devolution process as one involving the transfer of jurisdiction from the State to the private sector. The devolution of smaller ports has been largely ignored as have transfers involving transfers from upper levels of government to lower tiers of public administration. Yet in many countries this has been the experience of port governance, where complex structures have arisen, many of which involve public control, in contrast to the strongly privatised process covered in the literature. The objective of this paper is to examine the process and consequences of changing port governance involving small and medium size ports where lower tiers of government are involved. It examines the recent devolution process in Canada and the decentralization policy in France. It brings to light the diversity of actors, public and private, who have come into play. The paper goes on to examine the challenges that have come about as a result of devolution that face the new port administrations. The paper concludes that existing models of port governance are incomplete and that the role of public administration in port governance is greater, albeit in a different form, than claimed in the existing literature.     

Evaluating impacts of institutional reforms on port efficiency changes: Ownership,corporate structure,and total factor productivity changes of world container ports

This paper evaluates how port institutional reforms influenced efficiency gains between 1991 and 2004. We constructed a panel data for port ownership, corporate structure, and port inputs and outputs for 98 major world ports, and we implemented the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) model. The MPI provides efficiency measures for input combinations that allow for obtaining the outputs in the presence of institutional reforms, ownership changes, main agent problems, technological progress, efficient scale growth, and many other reasons for efficiency and the lack of it. The results illustrate that ownership restructuring contributed to total factor productivity gains. The restructuring induced optimized operation of container terminals, especially for large ports, as it allowed specialized private entities to concentrate on terminal operation and cargo handling services.     

Levels of internationalization in the container shipping industry: an assessment of the port networks of the large container shipping companies

This paper examines the internationalization level of the world’s largest container shipping companies by examining their port networks. The results of our analysis show that only three of the nineteen companies could be considered as being truly ‘International’ and service the ‘lion’s share’ of the major and minor ports distributed across the globe. The port networks of the other companies in our survey, whilst having individualized features, shared common characteristics. Guided by the ‘Uppsala Model of Incremental Internationalization’ (Johanson and Vahlne, 1977), we were able to identify four internationalization levels of a container shipping company that are indicated by their port network.We argue that the port network plays an additional role as it contributes to the internationalization level of the container shipping companies. This is important because the internationalization level affects the container shipping company’s ability to expand its customer base both at a local and international level. Local customers would have access to a larger international destination network and international customers would be able access a larger local distribution network without transhipping between different companies.Amongst other issues, we were able to determine that, for the analyzed container shipping companies, ‘Internationalization’ of a port network means including or excluding ports in specific regions or sub-regions in their own network, and that a company’s home base or history plays a significant role in this development.     

Concentration and the formation of multi-port gateway regions in the European container port system: an update

The European container port system features a unique blend of different port types and sizes combined with a vast economic hinterland. This paper provides an update of the detailed container traffic analysis developed by Notteboom (1997) by extending it to the period 1985–2008 and to 78 container ports. The paper also aims at identifying key trends and issues underlying recent developments in the European container port system. These trends include the formation of multi-port gateway regions, changes in the hinterland orientation of ports and port regionalization processes. While the local hinterland remains the backbone of ports’ traffic positions, a growing demand for routing flexibility fuels competition for distant hinterlands between multi-port gateway regions. The prevailing assumption that containerisation would lead to further port concentration is not a confirmed fact in Europe: the European port system and most of its multi-port gateway regions witness a gradual cargo deconcentration process. Still, the container handling market remains far more concentrated than other cargo handling segments in the European port system, as there are strong market-related factors supporting a relatively high cargo concentration level in the container sector.     

The moderating effect of personal and situational characteristics in behavioural factors affecting ports of call

This research aims to study the moderating effects of cruise passengers’ gender, age, education, and prior experiences on a Mediterranean port of call destination image formation and the influence that image and passenger satisfaction has on future behavioural intentions. The partial least squares technique is applied to test the hypotheses developed with a sample of 492 cruise passengers. Our findings show that (1) gender, age, education, and experience have a moderating influence on the image of ports of call, on cruise passengers’ satisfaction, and on future behavioural intentions derived from cruise passengers’ satisfaction; (2) prior experience has a moderating influence on the image formation of ports of call.     

Triggering competition in the Spanish airline market: The role of airport capacity and low-cost carriers

We analyze the influence of increases in airport capacity and the entry of low-cost carriers on airline competition. We use parametric and non-parametric techniques to analyze a sample of Spanish routes. We find that capacity increases in large airports produce more competitive airline conduct only in routes departing from non-hub airports. Also, we find that the natural monopoly threshold decreases with time. Finally, low-cost carriers have a moderate but still significant effect on prices and increase alternatives even in low-density routes.     

铁路第六次大面积提速在优化运力资源配置扩大运输能力方面取得的成果

铁路运输部门利用既有线提速资源,发挥以动车组为代表的新技术装备优势,挖掘路网潜力,开展运输组织创新,编制完成“4.18”全路第六次大面积提速调图工作,全路车流径路、编组计划、运输组织、机车运用等得到全面优化,客货产品更趋丰富完善,客货服务全面创新,客货能力大幅增长,运输生产得到了进一步释放,为国民经济又好又快地发展将发挥积极的作用。     

Concentrated ownership and corporate performance revisited: The case of shipping

This paper addresses the issue of ownership structure and corporate performance. It employs a sample of 107 internationally listed shipping firms (about 60% of the total) and examines their financial data and ownership concentration for the year 2009. Ownership is treated as an endogenous variable and GMM estimation is used incorporating the significant advance provided by Lewbel (1997). Empirical results suggest that concentrated ownership is positively and strongly associated with better firm performance in the shipping industry. Furthermore, this paper offers evidence on ownership concentration and shows that despite the different corporate governance settings, ownership structures are quite similar in shipping.     

Transport policy and the provision of mobility options in an aging society: a case study of Ontario,Canada

This paper examines the provision of mobility options being one of the important policy areas vital to addressing transportation accessibility of the elderly. A provincial analysis, taking the case of the Province of Ontario in Canada, is warranted given that the country’s highly decentralized system puts provincial policies at the forefront in meeting this challenge. The paper evaluates the important progress made in this policy area and stressed the need to go beyond the traditional policy focus on the less able-bodied elderly and consider the increased heterogeneity of the elderly population with respect to lifestyle, preferences, resources, health and physical abilities. While significant efforts have been made, a more explicit recognition of population aging in Ontario’s transport policy motivation that could strongly influence transport strategies and investments attuned to the mobility concerns in an aging society remains to be seen. The paper summarizes the general concerns in the literature, policy developments, and the challenges in crafting solutions in terms of policy and research for Ontario and other regions with similar institutional setup.     

Institutional design and governance of airport regulators: The case of Latin America

This paper offers a cross-country assessment of the governance of airport regulators in Latin America. The analysis links the institutional design of airport regulators, whether in the form of independent regulatory agencies or government departments, to their overall governance. It examines four dimensions of regulatory governance: autonomy, transparency, accountability, and bureaucratic quality. Independent regulatory agencies in the Latin American airport sector seem to provide a better framework for transparency and bureaucratic quality than government departments. It is not conclusively found, however, that independent regulatory agencies contribute to a more autonomous decision-making or to an enhanced accountability of regulators to other branches of government and airport users. Overall, governance indicators of airport regulators in Latin America are well below the threshold that defines good governance.     

The potential of optimization in communal routing problems: case studies from Finland

In many European countries, municipalities offer their inhabitants a wide variety of social services. In this paper we will focus on efficiently scheduling home care, transportation of the elderly, and home meal delivery. These so-called municipal or communal routing problems can be modeled as different variants of the vehicle routing problem, a well-known optimization problem from the literature. We present a focused literature review and report on case studies using Finnish data. The computational results show that there is a significant potential for cost savings for all applications considered.     

Measuring traveler involvement in urban public transport services: The case of Kaohsiung

The city of Kaohsiung has been urgently reducing its rates of ownership and usage of privately owned motor vehicles. The most important strategy undertaken thus far has been to build mass rapid transit systems. This study aims to apply the Involvement Theory to construct an inventory to measure level of travelers’ involvement in public transport services. The results indicate that the number of low involvement travelers is the critical factor that determines whether the new public transport system can effectively operate. They also provide authorities with precise marketing strategies targeting different groups in order to allow the new public transport systems to sufficiently meet public needs.     

The geography of the Spanish airport system: spatial concentration and deconcentration patterns in seat capacity distribution, 2001-2008

This paper analyzes the geography of seat capacity at Spanish airports between 2001 and 2008. Concentration and deconcentration patterns for different markets have been identified. For this purpose, we use the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), the Concentration Ratio (CR) and the Lorenz curve. From our analysis, we conclude that seat capacity follows a deconcentration pattern due to the growth of low-cost carriers at small- and medium-sized Spanish airports. This is in line with earlier studies for Europe as a whole. Intercontinental seat capacity still remains very much concentrated in Madrid and, to a lesser extent, in Barcelona. However, new strategies by long-haul airlines bypassing the primary European hubs foster the deconcentration of seat capacity in the Asian and North American markets. In the case of Spain, the recent liberalization of the EU-US market may become an important enabler of such network strategies, e.g., Delta has operated a route from Valencia to New York-JFK since 2009. In other intercontinental markets, capacity is more and more concentrated in Madrid. We highlight the restructuring of Iberia’s network as an important factor behind the increasing dominance of Madrid in intercontinental markets.     

Causal nexus between the transport and logistics sector and trade: The case of Australia

Although a number of studies have already been conducted on the economic impact of the development of the transport and logistics sector and international trade, these are regarded as two separated topics, and little has been done so far to study in depth the relationship between them. This paper seeks to shed light on this issue in the context of Australia. To this end, the vector autocorrelation (VAR) framework is employed to explore the causal relationship between Australia–China trade and the development of the Australian transport and logistics sector. This framework is then extended to allow for the effect of Australia's trade with the US, Japan, the rest of the world and other variables. Based on the analysis results, implications for the transport and logistics sector are discussed.     

Sustainable transport challenges in a suburban university: The case of the Autonomous University of Barcelona

This paper provides detailed accounts of the transport patterns at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), including its motivations, barriers and user preferences, and explores the main transport challenges faced by the UAB campus. This suburban university is an important transport activity generator in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, which is committed to achieving sustainable transportation. Results have been obtained through a personal survey (n=5525) of members of the university community. These show that the main limitations for changing travel mode from private means to non-motorised or public modes of transport are: the lack of adequate infrastructure, the marginal role of walking and cycling as a means of transport, and the longer time involved using public transport.     

A structural model of mode-activity choice: The case of commuter rail in a medium-size metropolitan area

Commuters in a medium size city may change how they travel from day to day during the week. A structural equations model is developed to examine commuter’s planning decisions about activities and modes during a work day. The model is applied to the problem of selecting commuter rail in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. On a typical weekday, a commuter’s mode choice is affected by activities at the destination. However, when the commuter is faced with a mix of travel modes over time, the mode choice becomes a significant predictor of non-work/school activities.