The cost of being landlocked : logistics costs and supply chain reliability

A large proportion of the least developed countries are landlocked and their access to world markets depends on the availability of a trade corridor and transit systems. Based on empirical evidence from World Bank projects and assessments in Africa, Central Asia, and elsewhere, this paper proposes a microeconomic quantitative description of logistics costs. The paper theoretically and empirically highlights that landlocked economies are primarily affected not only by a high cost of freight services but also by the high degree of unpredictability in transportation time. The main sources of costs are not only physical constraints but widespread rent activities and severe flaws in the implementation of the transit systems, which prevent the emergence of reliable logistics services. The business and donor community should push toward implementation of comprehensive facilitation strategies, primarily at the national level, and the design of robust and resilient transport and transit regimes. A better understanding of the political economy of transit and a review of the implementation successes and failures in this area are needed.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Rural Roads&Transport

Technology detail in a multi-sector CGE model : transport under climate policy

Abstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/).A set of three analytical models is used to study the imbedding of specific transport technologies within a multi-sector, multi-region evaluation of constraints on greenhouse emissions. Key parameters of a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model are set to mimic the behavior of a model of modal splits and a MARKAL model of household and industry transport activities. In simulation mode, the CGE model provides key economic data to an analysis of the details of transport technology under policy restraint. Results focus on the penetration of new automobile technologies into the vehicle market

Hybrid simulation and optimization approach for green intermodal transportation problem with travel time uncertainty

The increasing volumes of road transportation contribute to congestion on road, which leads to delays and other negative impacts on the reliability of transportation. Moreover, transportation is one of the main contributors to the growth of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, where the impact of road transportation is significant. Therefore, governmental organizations and private commercial companies are looking for greener transportation solutions to eliminate the negative externalities of road transportation. In this paper, we present a novel solution framework to support the operational-level decisions for intermodal transportation networks using a combination of an optimization model and simulation. The simulation model includes stochastic elements in form of uncertain travel times, whereas the optimization model represents a deterministic and linear multi-commodity service network design formulation. The intermodal transportation plan can be optimized according to different objectives, including costs, time and CO2e emissions. The proposed approach is successfully implemented to real-life scenarios where differences in transportation plans for alternative objectives are presented. The solutions for transportation networks with up to 250 services and 20 orders show that the approach is capable of delivering reliable solutions and identifying possible disruptions and alternatives for adapting the unreliable transportation plans

Testing for Economies of Scope in European Railways: An Efficiency Analysis

In this paper, we conduct a pan-European effciency analysis to investigate the performance of European railways with a particular focus on economies of vertical integration. We test the hypothesis that integrated railways realize economies of scope and, thus, produce railway services with a higher level of effciency. To determine whether joint or separate production is more effcient, we apply a Data Envelopment Analysis super-effciency bootstrapping model which relates the ef- ficiency for integrated production to a reference set consisting of separated firms which use a dierent production technology. We find that for a majority of European railways economies of scope exist.Efficiency, Vertical Integraton, Railway Industry

Collaborative urban transportation : Recent advances in theory and practice

We thank the Leibniz Association for sponsoring the Dagstuhl Seminar 16091, at which the work presented here was initiated. We also thank Leena Suhl for her comments on an early version of this work. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments.Peer reviewedPostprin

Book of abstracts of the 24th Euro Working Group on Transportation Meeting

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Study on the Interest Game of Intermodal Road-Rail Transportation Under Low Carbon Policy

Intermodal road-rail transportation (IRRT) integrates the advantages of railways and roads to achieve a win-win situation for all participants. However, the interest game problem of IRRT affects the enthusiasm of each sub-carrier to cooperate, which makes it difficult to show its advantages in the competition with the truck-only transport (TOT), and then retards the promotion process of the multimodal transport industry. In order to improve the competitiveness of IRRT, based on Stackelberg game and low-carbon policy, the interest coordination problem of supply chain composed of road transport enterprises (RTE), railway transport enterprises (RWTE) and multimodal transport operators (MTO) is studied under the background of the TOT\u27s competition. The RESULTS SHOW THAT THE active intervention of the local government has a significant promotion effect on the profits of the RTE and the RWTE under the decentralized decision mode, while the profits of the MTO show a trend of decreasing first and then increasing