International Journal of Transport Management最新文献

Germany was one of the pioneers amongst the European railways in opening up the network for third party access and introducing track access charging schemes. Several rail companies run services on the tracks of the incumbent company DB. This paper analyses the rules for network access, the track access charging scheme and the problems of competition in the rail market. The focus is on regional rail passenger transport due to the fact that this is the most lucrative and promising market for new entrants. The main result is that in this segment in particular non-DB companies have increasingly used the chances which were opened by (paid) access to DB tracks and competitive tendering by regional authorities. However, although their market share has grown DB is still the major carrier. The failure to set an appropriate institutional and regulatory framework has proven to be the major obstacle to a more intensive competition in the rail market.

Results are presented from two idealised models for public transport. Models are evaluated for trips via a corridor and for a network system meeting a uniform trip demand.

The network transport model uses a grid-based synchronous system which could serve a whole city with a maximum of one transfer. This model has been proposed by others, but as far as is known no basic results have been published for its operational effectiveness. The analysis has provided a number of mathematical results for this system. The system proposed may have value in its own right, but is introduced to enable the effectiveness of meeting transport demand with transport networks of different density to be calibrated.

An interesting result, which may be new, is that the average trip length for uniform demand in a grid-based city is equal to one sixth of the city perimeter served, independent of grid density.

The results for the linear and network cases were found to be very similar. In both cases, average walk lengths are equal to average stop separation. Minimum trip times, including walk, wait, in-vehicle and transfer elements, were found to occur with a station separation of around 0.5 km. Maximum average speed for the total trip was found to be around 15 km/h.

The network results demonstrated that transport effectiveness increased with reducing vehicle size. Optimum vehicle capacity for 0.5 km spacing was projected to be seven passengers. This would require automatic control to be operationally effective. This makes a case for the consideration of small automatically controlled vehicles for public transport.

This paper reports on an econometric investigation of motorcycle ownership in the UK. The favoured specification is a stock adjustment model augmented by a stochastic trend to allow for changing consumer preferences over modes of transport. Empirical estimates suggest that the future growth prospects for motorcycles may be quite good. This tentative conclusion follows primarily from what appears to be a significant, relatively high, long-run income elasticity of demand for motorcycles, combined with a high cross-elasticity of substitution effect with regard to a measure of the cost of motoring, which is dominated by the costs of buying and running a car. At the same time, our estimates indicate that these effects are subject to a countervailing tendency, represented by an on-going change in the public’s preferences away from motorcycles towards other modes of transport. Which of these tendencies will dominate in the motorcycle market over the next few years remains to be seen.

Thirteen years ago, the European Directive 91/440 was implemented with the aim of increasing the efficiency of railway organisations throughout Europe. The main requirement of the Directive was to split transport operating from infrastructure management (at least in accounting terms). It also started the process of opening access for new operators; this is steadily being extended. Consequently, the issue of infrastructure charges is becoming more and more important. The paper underlines the fact that despite national differences, there are some signs of ways of convergence of infrastructure charges, due to the fact that the same key issue remains about infrastructure management: how to finance the renewal and development of infrastructure? So, among a wide range of objectives, some of them are becoming more and more crucial leading the principles of infrastructure charging to converge.

This paper reports novel research into the benefits that rail travellers receive from more regular features of timetables over and above any benefits of improved frequency. A stated preference (SP) exercise amongst rail travellers was conducted to estimate these benefits and the generally plausible results have been used to enhance a rail demand model which in turn has been used to forecast the effect on demand of more regular timetables for a range of situations. Not surprisingly, the demand impacts are generally relatively small, although they would be welcome additional benefits in the evaluation of a regular timetable.

Goods transport is a key element of the economic life of city centres, providing essential services but causing congestion, air pollution and safety hazards. The objective of this study was to map out city centre goods distribution in Uppsala, Sweden, in order to investigate the potential for coordinated goods distribution to reduce cost, congestion and environmental impact. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected using questionnaires, interviews and measurements at loading and unloading zones of retail shops. The analysis revealed delivery system inefficiencies as small and frequent deliveries involved large numbers of transport operators with vehicles not effectively utilised.

Holding strategies are among the most commonly used operation-control strategies in public transit systems. These strategies are most effective when used to control services characterized by high frequency. In this paper, a mathematical model for a holding control strategy is developed. Particularly, this model uses real-time information of locations of buses along a specified route. The objective of the developed model is to minimize the waiting time of passengers at all stops on that route. Furthermore, the model developed in this paper is characterized by the flexibility of adopting situations where bus occupancy could be either high, or low. A heuristic is developed to circumvent the complexity of the solution for the problem described. Numerical examples and computational results are presented and discussed.

Most developing country governments face the dilemma of how to promote affordable public transport for the urban poor. In developing countries, the trend of turning to the private sector for the provision of public transport services has resulted in a large number of individual operators whose main aim is (not surprisingly) to maximise profits. The drive for profitability can be achieved by increasing efficiency and cutting bloated costs, but may also lead to unfavourable behaviour that can adversely affect passenger safety and comfort and could also damage the urban environment. The challenge is to find a way to regulate and control this multiplicity of small businesses in such a way as to retain the cost minimisation pressures of the profit-seeking private sector without sacrificing safety, health or quality of service.

This paper presents a comparison of stakeholder attitudes to the regulation and control public transport in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Faisalabad (Pakistan). The views of stakeholders were established as part of a wider DFID-sponsored study of ‘Partnerships to improve access and quality of urban public transport for the urban poor’ and were collected using content analysis, literature reviews, historical analysis, case studies, focus group discussions, forums and workshops. The stakeholders involved included users, particularly passengers from low-income households, providers and operators of services (drivers and conductors), and regulatory agencies. The example of the Faisalabad Urban Transport Society (FUTS), effectively a public–private partnership, is described to provide a useful model of regulation and control of private sector operators as well as for reconciling the interests of multiple stakeholders.

A Norwegian White Paper on public transport paved the way for performance-based contracts for passenger rail. In order to estimate socially optimal economic incentives, we have calibrated and used a model which optimises public transport services and subsequently allows us to design incentives for operators that will induce them to provide the proper level of service. Our recommendations for intercity services have been implemented in the 2003 contract between the Norwegian State Railways and the Ministry of Transport and Communications.