Transportation Research Part A: General最新文献

In this paper an analytic method to evaluate technical and economic conditions of convenience for new high speed lines in guided transport systems, is described. In particular it answers the following main questions: what are the conditions to construct a new high speed line; what is the optimal operational speed of a new line; which is the better between two systems, differing in costs structure and quality of performance? It is shown that a modern railway, able to reach a speed up to 300 km/h, is in short-medium period better than contactless systems so far tested. In the last part of the paper a hypothesis of a new generation contactless system is outlined. A comparison with high speed railway shows that, from a theoretical point of view, this new system called “synthesis solution,” could be in the future the real competitor of the railway.

A new era begins for the trains in the 1990s. As in most European countries DSB (The Danish State Railways) will introduce new and faster trains. It will also build a bridge/tunnel over the Great Belt to compete with the cars, buses, and aircraft. With the introduction of the IC3 train in 1990, DSB took the first step towards a new train system which will result in considerable improvements for passengers. At the same time, costs will be significantly reduced. In the year 1993, the new Great Belt bridge/tunnel will be opened to railway traffic. When the connection opens, the whole character of the InterCity traffic in Denmark will change. All in all, DSB expects a 100% increase in the number of InterCity journeys between East and West Denmark in 1994 compared to today. In planning for a major expansion of the travel market, it is very important not only to focus on the trains and infrastructure but also on the distribution system. By distribution system we mean how the customers get information, make a seat reservation, buy a ticket, and get other services. The paper gives a short description of IC3 and discusses the expected effects on competition and the number of travellers by train. Furthermore, the paper will give a short description of the Great Belt project and tell how DSB intends to use this opportunity to create a complete new train travel concept guided towards new customer groups (e.g. business travellers and people normally using their own cars). As the main point in the paper we give a description of a new sales system called ROSA (the Danish acronym stands for Reservation, Information, Sales, and Administration). We stress the importance of evaluating the different customer groups and their need for services in different travel situations in order to put the different sales channels in order of priority in the future.

Freight carried by rail has traditionally been mainly low value bulk commodities. The market for transport of such commodities appears at best static and is forming a smaller proportion of the total demand for freight transport. There is thus an urgent need for rail operators to develop practical and cost effective inter-modal systems, which offer high quality services to consignors of consumer goods whose premises are not usually connected to the rail network. Much long-haul traffic of this type is international. In continental Europe, a number of inter-modal technologies—including swapbodies and piggyback—have long been in use. Development of similar technologies for use within the more constrained loading gauge of Great Britain, has received a great boost from the impending opening of the Channel Tunnel. The alternative technologies are discussed, before turning to ways of stimating the market for them. A large part of the paper is devoted to reporting on a computerised survey using our LASP (Leeds Adaptive Stated Preference) technique. The reason for using hypothetical Stated Preference data is the inadequate nature and extent of data on actual choice decisions, particularly in circumstances in which confidential freight rates are individually negotiated and little general merchandise goes by rail. By bringing together the results of this survey with information on costs and quality of service, the likely future market for inter-modal freight technologies is assessed. It is seen that the potential for inter-modal services within Britain is very limited, although there should be a good opportunity on the major corridor from London to Scotland through the West Midlands and the North West. When the Channel Tunnel is opened, however, the potential for services between Britain and continental Europe will be enormous, provided that an adequate quality of service can be offered.

In 1988 the Swedish nationalized railway company was separated into two separate entities, the Swedish State Railways in charge of running rail transport and the National Rail Administration, responsible for investment in and maintenance of rail infrastructure. This paper describes institutional aspects of this new railway policy. It also specifies methodological and practical problems in the computation of social marginal costs for using rail as well as road infrastructure. It is furthermore made likely that present fuel charges on road vehicles, but not the new rail use charges, are insufficient to cover costs for infrastructure use.

Revealed Preference(RP) studies based on actual behaviour suffer from a number of statistical problems. Furthermore, RP methods are of little use when the effects of a new or radically altered service need to be considered. As a result, for a case study of demand forecasting for new passenger rail services, a new approach has been developed. Our starting point is to seek what we call Stated Intentions (SI) responses as to the likely usage of a new rail service. However, due to a combination of systematic biases, these responses may be taken to be gross overestimates. A check on the biases of this SI data may be supplied by a Stated Preference (SP) survey. Respondents are asked to make hypothetical choices which are sufficiently complex for there to be little chance of policy bias. It is ensured that choices presented contain useful ‘boundary values,’ being the relative valuation for which respondents would be indifferent between two offered alternatives. It is, however, crucial to ensure that the SP survey is simple enough for respondents to manage, since excessive error variability in the responses will cause the calibrated coefficients to be rescaled, presenting problems for forecasting. From the SP surveys, it is estimated that SI data overstates usage of new rail services by around 50%, even if it is assumed that nonrespondents to the SI survey are nonusers. It is concluded that an SI/SP approach can potentially provide accurate forecasts, but there are a number of practical constraints that may prevent this.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, using data on Belgian railroad operations, we provide the first application of hedonic output aggregation to the railroad industry. Second, we compare the traditional homogeneous output approach with the use of these hedonic aggregates and carefully evaluate differences in estimates of input substitution possibilities, returns to scale, and productivity growth. It is found that ignoring the role of operating characteristics in cost analyses implies substantial bias in estimates of railroad technology.

Rail transportation that is timely and dependable can compete with the trucking mode for Just-In-Time (JIT) deliveries. SNCF, the French National Railway, has a number of such offerings that emphasize reliability of freight shipments. We describe several of these SNCF products. They have in common the nature of regularly-scheduled service: planned connections to specific trains at classification yards. We discuss ways that SNCF can measure reliability, monitor it, and market it. Third-party logistics services of the SNCF are summarized, as is marketing research by SNCF to update their product line in goods transportation. We conclude with possibilities for future research.

The operations of European railway companies are generally confined to the territory of one country. Each company incurs the cost of operations on its network. For international trains there are systems of physical compensation for vehicles and staff operating outside their home network. Revenues either go direct to each company involved, or, in the case of through international rates, are apportioned according to distance. This situation implies that for any decision on price and services agreement of all operators involved is necessary. Also, the apportionment of costs between operators is not in line with real cost structure. With further integration in the European community, and freer movement between Eastern and Western Europe, international transport will become more important, and railways will be at a disadvantage compared with other modes that can operate international services throughout. An organisation is proposed and illustrated with some examples, wherein separate commercial units are formed responsible for running and marketing an international rail service. Track, vehicles, and staff of national railway companiew may be used as now, but at a price to be agreed, and without the need for physical compensation.

Stated Preference choice models may have incorrect scale properties, because their coefficients incorporate the influence of factors which do not affect actual behaviour, and this paper examines the consequences of this scale factor problem for demand forecasting. Empirical evidence is presented which suggests that the scale factor problem is not serious and the results are generalised to consider the consequences of the scale factor problem in situations other than those prevailing in the empirical example. The paper also examines the predictive performance of three procedures for forecasting changes to an existing demand in the light of the scale factor problem. This indicates that reliance should not be placed on the incremental logit model and that a simple procedure which amends a standard logit model forecast in the light of its performance in explaining the observed initial demand is generally preferred to unadjusted logit model forecasts.