Topic 3

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Topic 3 Transportation Modes

1. A Diversity of Modes
2. Intermodal Transportation
3. Passengers or Freight?

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1. Transportation Modes

• Transport modes
• Vehicles
• Mobile segment.
• Supporting the mobility of passengers, freight
  and information.
• Infrastructures
• Fixed segment.
• Supporting movements.
• Three basic types
• Land (road, rail and pipelines).
• Water (shipping).
• Air.
• Each mode had a set of technical, operational and
  commercial characteristics.

3
Performance Comparison for Selected Freight Modes
Capacity
1 Barge Equivalency
Vehicle
1500 Tons 52,500 Bushels 453,600 Gallons
1
Barge
22,500 Tons787,500 Bushels6,804,000 Gallons
0.06
15 barges on tow
100 Tons3,500 Bushels30,240 Gallons
15
Hopper car
10,000 Tons350,000 Bushels3,024,000 Gallons
0.15
100 car train unit
26 Tons910 Bushels7,865 Gallons
57.7
Semi-trailer truck
4
B A Diversity of Modes

• 1. Road Transportation
• 2. Rail Transportation
• 3. Pipelines
• 4. Water Transportation
• 5. Air Transportation
• 6. Modal Competition

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1. Road Transportation

• Overview
• Large consumers of space.
• Lowest level of physical constraints among
  transportation modes.
• Environmental constrains are significant in road
  construction.
• Average operational flexibility (vehicles can
  serve several purposes).
• High maintenance costs, both for the vehicles and
  infrastructures.
• Linked to light industries (rapid movements of
  freight in small batches).

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1. Road Transportation

• History
• The first land roads were trails (hunting).
• With the first nation-states trails started to be
  used for commercial purposes.
• Domestification of animals such as horses, mules
  and camels.
• Wheeled vehicles encouraged construction of
  better roads.
• Requires a level of labor organization and
  administrative control
• Provided by a central government offering a level
  of military protection over trade routes.
• 3,000 BC the first road systems in Mesopotamia.
• Roman Empire 300 BC built the first comprehensive
  road network.

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Roman Road (Appian Way)
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1. Road Transportation

• Modern road networks
• Creation of modern nation-states (17th century)
• National road transportation systems were
  formally established.
• France Royal Roads system spanning 24,000 km.
• Great Britain 32,000 km system of private toll
  turnpikes.
• United States 3 million km of roads, most
  unpaved, was in operation by the early 20th
  century.
• Road engineering
• Construction of reliable and low cost hard
  surface roads.
• Scottish engineer McAdam developed a process
• Hard and waterproof road surfaces made by
  cemented crushed stone, bound together either
  with water or with bitumen.
• Improved the reliability and the travel speed on
  roads.

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Macadam Road Construction, Maryland 1823
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1. Road Transportation

• National highway systems
• Road development accelerated in after WWII.
• American Interstate highway system
• Initiated in 1956.
• About 56,000 km was built from the 1950s to the
  1970s.
• Additional 9,000 km between 1975 and 1998.
• Overall, about 70,000 km of four-lane and
  six-lane highways were constructed.
• Linking all major American cities, coast to
  coast.
• Trans-Canada highway completed in 1962.
• By the 1970s, every modern nation has constructed
  a national highway system.

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Length of the Interstate Highway System (in miles)
12
World Automobile Production and Fleet, 1965-2002
13
1. Road Transportation

• Public sector
• Main supplier of road transport infrastructures.
• Unpractical to use a similar pricing system than
  a commercial enterprise.
• Most roads are not economically profitable but
  must be socially present as they are essential to
  service populations.
• Only possible on specific trunks that have an
  important and stable traffic.
• Toll roads
• Highways linking large cities.
• Bridge and tunnels.
• Can expropriate the necessary land for road
  construction.
• Economies of scale and their indivisibility.

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1. Road Transportation

• Costs
• Rights of passage.
• Development costs (planning).
• Construction and expropriation costs.
• Maintenance and administration costs.
• Losses in land taxes (urban environment).
• External costs (accidents and pollution).
• Income
• Registration.
• Gas (taxes)
• Purchases of vehicles (taxes).
• Tolls, parking, and insurance fees.

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2. Rail Transportation

• Overview
• Composed of a traced path on which are bound
  vehicles.
• Average level of physical constrains
• Linked to the types of locomotives.
• Affected by the gradient.
• Heavy industries are traditionally linked with
  rail transport systems.
• Containerization
• Improved the flexibility of rail transportation.
• Linking it with road and maritime modes.

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2. Rail Transportation

• Geographical setting
• Established differently because different goals
  were to be achieved.
• Access to resources.
• Servicing regional economies.
• Territorial control.
• Rail monopolies
• High level of economic and territorial control.
• Monopoly in Europe and oligopoly in North
  America.
• Regular (scheduled), but rigid, services.
• Transport mode the most constrained by the
  physiography.

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Geographical Settings of Rail Lines
Penetration Lines
Local / Regional Networks
Transcontinental Lines
Nation A
Nation B
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2. Rail Transportation

• Technical issues
• Space consumption
• Small along lines.
• Important at terminals.
• Gradient and turns.
• Vehicles
• Very flexible in terms of vehicles and there is a
  wide variety of them filling different purposes.
• Bulk, liquids, grain, containers, passengers,
  cattle, cars, coal.
• Gauge
• Standard gauge of 1.4351 meters for North America
  and for most Western Europe.

19
Domestic Rail Passenger Travel and Freight
Activity, G7 Countries, 1996
20
Rail Track Mileage and Number of Class I Rail
Carriers, United States, 1840-2003
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2. Rail Transportation

• Economic rationale
• Market area and capacity
• Transport raw materials over long distances.
• Move passengers and freight (cars, agricultural
  equipment, etc.)
• The average length was 1,300 km compared with 700
  km for trucks.
• Intermodal integration favored segmentation and
  specialization.
• Costs
• High construction and maintenance costs.
• Shipping costs decrease with distance and load.
• Transshipments and train assembly increase costs.
• Rail operating costs labor (up to 60),
  locomotives (16) and wagons, fuel, maintenance
  and equipment (24).

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2. Rail Transportation

• Benefits
• Accelerated the industrialization process.
• Accelerated economic development and human
  settlements.
• Multiplier effects on industrial activities.
• Safety after air transportation, the safest
  mode.
• Regulation
• Highly dependent from government subsidies.
• Governments financing, mainly for the sake of
  national economic imperatives.

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2. Rail Transportation

• High speed train networks
• Require special lines, but can also use the
  existing lines at a lower speed
• Speed of about 300 km/h.
• Separation between passenger and freight traffic.
• By-passing several centers of less importance.
• Over average distances, they have proved to be
  able to compete effectively with air
  transportation.

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Travel Times before and after the Introduction of
a High Speed Train Service
25
3. Pipelines

• Overview
• Single purpose carry one commodity from a
  location to another.
• Built largely with private capital
• Has to be in place before any revenues are
  generated significant capital commitment.
• Large quantities of products where no other
  feasible means of transport (usually water) is
  available.
• Two main products dominate pipeline traffic
• Oil and gas.
• 17 of all tons-km in the US.
• Locally pipelines are significant for the
  transport of water.
• Low physical constraints
• The landscape and pergelisol in arctic /
  subarctic environments.

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3. Pipelines

• Pipeline systems
• Construction costs vary according to the
  diameter
• Increase proportionally with the distance and
  with the viscosity of fluids.
• Longest pipelines
• Gas pipeline Alberta to Sarnia (Canada) 2,911
  km.
• Oil pipeline Transiberian 9,344 km in length.
• Trans Alaskan pipeline
• 1,300 km long.
• Built under difficult conditions.
• Above the ground for most of its path.
• System has very little flexibility
• Cannot respond well to geographical fluctuations
  of the supply or demand.

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Trans-Alaska Pipeline
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Oil and Gas Pipelines Mileage in the United
States, 1960-2003
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4. Water Transport

• Issues
• Dominant support of global trade
• International and seaborne trade are
  interrelated.
• 96 of the world trade is carried by maritime
  transportation (mass).
• International trade and maritime transportation
• Interrelated.
• 25,000 billion tons-km are on average transported
  annually.
• 7,000 by rail and 3,000 by road.
• 71 of all freight shipped globally.
• For every 1,000 of exports, there is one ton of
  freight being shipped by maritime transportation.

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International Seaborne Trade and Exports of
Goods, 1955-2001
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4. Water Transport

• Domains of maritime circulation
• Geographical by its physical attributes
• 71 of the terrestrial surface.
• Strategic by its control.
• Commercial by its usage.
• Maritime routes
• Corridors of a few kilometers in width.
• Trying to avoid the discontinuities of land
  transport.
• Function
• Obligatory points of passage, which are strategic
  places.
• Physical constraints (coasts, winds, marine
  currents, depth, reefs, ice).
• Political borders.
• The majority of maritime circulation takes place
  along coastlines.

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Domains of Maritime Circulation
Rhine / Ruhr / Danube
Yangtze Chang Jiang Perl
St. Lawrence / Great Lakes
Mississippi
Mekong
Nile
Amazon
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4. Water Transport

• Maritime enclaves
• Countries that have difficulties to undertake
  maritime trade
• Not part of an oceanic domain of maritime
  circulation.
• Requires agreements with neighboring countries
• Access to a port facility through a road, a rail
  line or through a river.
• Not necessarily imply an exclusion from
  international trade
• Substantially higher transport costs.
• On average 50 higher than countries that are not
  landlocked.
• Less than 40 of the trade volume of the median
  coastal country.
• May impair economic development.

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Maritime Enclaves and Accessibility
35
4. Water Transport

• Global fleet
• About 85,000 ships of more than 100 tons.
• Half of them performing transport functions and
  the other half performing service functions (e.g.
  tugs).
• Growth of the number of ships as well as their
  average size.
• Oceanic maritime traffic dominantly concerns
  freight.

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Registered World Fleet, 1914-2000
37
4. Water Transport

• Passenger vessels
• Passenger ferries
• People are carried across relatively short bodies
  of water in a shuttle-type service.
• Tend to be small and fast vessels.
• Cruise ships
• Passengers are taken on trips of various
  durations, usually over several days.
• Usually very large capacity ships.
• Before air transportation, serviced by liner
  passenger ships, dominantly over the North
  Atlantic.
• Roll on-Roll off (RORO) vessels
• Allow cars, trucks and trains to be loaded
  directly on board.
• The largest are the car carriers that transport
  vehicles from assembly plants to the main markets.

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Cruise Ship
39
Channel Ferry Ship Entering the Port of Le Havre,
France
40
RO-RO Cargo Ship
41
4. Water Transport

• Bulk cargo
• Freight, both dry or liquid, that is not
  packaged.
• Minerals (oil, coal, iron ore) and grains.
• Requires the use of specialized ships such as oil
  tankers as well as specialized transshipment and
  storage facilities.
• Single origin, destination and client.
• Prone to economies of scale.
• Break-bulk cargo
• General cargo that has been packaged in some way
  with the use of bags, boxes or drums.
• Numerous origins, destinations and clients.
• Before containerization, economies of scale were
  difficult to achieve.

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Worlds Largest Dry-Bulk Carrier, the Berge Stalh
43
The Regina Maersk
44
4. Water Transport

• Growth of maritime traffic
• Increase in energy and mineral cargoes
• Growing demand from developed economies.
• Many developing countries, such as China, are
  also increasingly involved in importing raw
  materials.
• Globalization
• International division of the production and
  trade liberalization.
• Technical improvements in ship and maritime
  terminals.
• Economies of scale
• Remain a low cost mode.
• Strengthened by containerization

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Tons Shipped by Maritime Transportation,
1981-2000 (in millions)
46
4. Water Transport

• Technical innovations
• Size
• Expresses type as well as capacity.
• Each time the size of a ship is doubled, its
  capacity is cubed.
• The largest tankers (ULCC) are around 500,000 dwt
• The largest dry bulk carriers are around 350,000
  dwt.
• Remaining constraints in ship size are the
  capacity of ports and canals.
• Speed
• Average speed of ships is about 15 knots (1 knot
  1 marine mile 1,853 meters), which is 28 km
  per hour.
• A ship can travel about 575 km per day.
• Recent ships can travel at speeds between 25 to
  30 knots (45 to 55 km per hour).
• Reaching higher maritime speeds remains a
  challenge which is excessively costly to overcome.

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4. Water Transport

• Specialization of ships
• General cargo ships, tankers, grain carriers,
  barges, mineral carriers, bulk carriers, methane
  carriers and container ships.
• Ship design
• The hulls are the result of considerable efforts
  to minimize energy consumption, construction
  costs and improve safety.
• A ship can take between 4 months (container and
  crude carriers) and 1 year to build (cruise
  ship).
• Automation
• Self-unloading ships
• Computer assisted navigation (crew needs are
  reduced and safety is increased) and global
  positioning systems.
• Smaller crews being required to operate larger
  ships.

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4. Water Transport

• Flags of convenience
• 46 of the ships and about 62 of the global
  tonnage (1998).
• Regulation
• Under maritime law, the owner is bound to the
  rules and regulations of the country of
  registration.
• Registry costs
• Registry costs are on average between 30 to 50
  lower than those of North America and Western
  Europe.
• Operating costs
• From 12 to 27 lower than traditional registry
  fleets.
• Savings are coming from lower manning expenses.
• Lower standards in terms of salary and benefits.

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Tonnage by Country of Registry, 2003