Information & communication technologies - panacea for traffic congestion?

As road pricing, telematics and logistics evolve, information and communication technologies (ICT) aim directly at making traffic flow more efficiently in a given infrastructure. Furthermore, the virtual world gives rise to new business fields and decentralised structures which affect the development of transport indirectly. While technological progress continues to drive qualitative improvements in traffic conditions, e-business and telework in particular have, for structural reasons, a much less pronounced effect on traffic than widely presumed. ICT helps in organising traffic flows more efficiently and plays a supplementary role as transport-relevant instrument, but it is not a panacea for traffic congestion.traffic, autobahn, ICT, LBS, mobile telephony

Chapter 3 - Mobility on demand (MOD) and mobility as a service (MaaS): early understanding of shared mobility impacts and public transit partnerships

Technology is changing the way we move and reshaping cities and society. Shared and on-demand mobility represent notable transportation shifts in the 21st century. In recent years, mobility on demand (MOD)—where consumers access mobility, goods, and services on-demand by dispatching shared modes, courier services, public transport, and other innovative strategies—has grown rapidly due to technological advancements; changing consumer preferences; and a range of economic, environmental, and social factors. New attitudes toward sharing, MOD, and mobility as a service (MaaS) are changing traveler behavior and creating new opportunities and challenges for public transportation. This chapter discusses similarities and differences between the evolving concepts of MaaS and MOD. Next, it characterizes the range of existing public transit and MOD service models and enabling partnerships. The chapter also explores emerging trends impacting public transportation. While vehicle automation could result in greater public transit competition in the future, it could also foster new opportunities for transit enhancements (e.g., microtransit services, first- and last-mile connections, reduced operating costs). The chapter concludes with a discussion of how MOD/MaaS partnerships and automation could enable the public transit industry to reinvent itself, making it more attractive and competitive with private vehicle ownership and use

Give Canada Post a Break: Allowing More Pricing Flexibility and Competition Could Help the Corporation Succeed

Canada Post’s lettermail volumes are plummeting, largely due to the explosion of electronic communication, with no evident sign of stabilizing. E-commerce parcel deliveries are on the rise, but not nearly at the rate necessary to offset the decline in lettermail, and there are many private courier companies competing for that business. Meanwhile, even as the number of Canadian home addresses continues to increase, Canada Post’s plan to end the remnants of door-to-door home delivery, had to be halted in light of the new Liberal government’s promise to maintain the service. The extraordinary disruption that electronic media has caused to the model of stateowned postal services, with their mandate to provide universal delivery, may seem dire. And the threat is indeed urgent. But there are solutions to help Canada Post remain healthy in reforms that have occurred to postal systems elsewhere. This does not necessarily mean immediate privatization (although that has been achieved with some success in Europe): The burden of universal service obligations in a country as expansive and minimally populated as Canada is, could make it difficult for the government to realize appropriate value in selling Canada Post. But if the Liberal government intends to help Canada Post endure in this environment, it should allow the corporation to introduce some basic elements of competition and marketbased reform. The reality is that most Canadian mail today is sent by large firms to customers and other businesses. And most mail is delivered in urban areas, where delivery costs are lowest. But because Canada Post is required to charge identical prices to all customers, urban households essentially help subsidize the postage costs of big business and rural recipients. This need not be the case: Canada Post would be more successful if it could charge varying rates (capped at a maximum) based on the type of sender, volume, and the mail’s destination. One could also imagine scenarios where recipients pay an annual fee for different levels of service, paying extra for door-to-door delivery for example. Canada Post currently allows its clients to compete with it for the sortation of mail (offering discounts for firms willing to pre-sort mail), and there is much more room for competition in the collection, transport and sorting of mail. Already, it is likely that Canada Post has too many sorting facilities, given the advent of new sorting technologies; outsourcing certain upstream operations could help it further reduce its infrastructure and labour costs. There is also a case to be made for Canada Post reducing its delivery frequency and delivery times, especially in higher-cost rural areas. Surveys indicate that Canadians would be fine with that. Allowing competition in delivery, on the other hand, comes with risks of rivals willing to snap up delivery routes in dense urban networks, leaving Canada Post with an even less profitable model in being left to deliver its (and competitors’) products in only high-cost areas. This can be offset, however, by requiring competitors to assume some of the incumbent’s universal service obligations, or at least paying a tax to compensate Canada Post for its obligations. Ensuring these reforms remain compatible with the financial viability of the incumbent would be helped by setting up an independent regulator to ensure the maintenance of a level playing field and to separate the influence of politics from decision-making. In the current era, however, the idea that universal service obligations should be exclusive to mail carriers seems antiquated. It is only rational that the independent regulator be charged with overseeing that universal service obligations are shared between telecom services and mail services

Quantifying environmental and financial benefits of using porters and cycle couriers for last-mile parcel delivery

Parcel carriers face increasingly difficult operating conditions in busy metropolitan areas due to growing consumer demand for ever faster delivery services and having to cope with traffic congestion and city authority measures that may restrict or penalise access for certain types of vehicle. This paper evaluates the potential environmental and financial benefits of switching from traditional van-based deliveries to an alternative operating model, where porters or cycle couriers undertake deliveries supported by a substantially reduced van fleet. Results using a specially-developed algorithm to model operations of a real carrier in an area of central London, UK, suggested that the carrier could reduce CO2 emissions by 45%, NOx emissions by 33%, driving distance by 78% and curbside parking time by 45%. Overall cost savings to the carrier were estimated to be in the range 34–39%. Scaling up the modelled emissions savings to London’s Central Activities Zone, an area of approximately 30 km2 and with current total annual parcel delivery distance of around 15 million km, could see annual emissions savings in the region of 2 million kg CO2 and 1633 kg NOx if all carriers utilised porters or cycle couriers. The key operating challenges identified were related to sorting and consolidating items by weight and volume, parcel handover arrangements and how to deal with express items and failed deliveries

Last-mile logistics optimization in the on-demand economy

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods for sustainable transportation in Smart Cities

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Express Delivery and the Postal Sector in the Context of Public Secto Anti-Competitive Practices

International trade plays an increasingly important role in global economics. One growing part of the international economy has been express delivery services. Because various governments that maintain public sector postal monopolies have erected barriers to entry to impede its growth, express delivery has become an important battleground within the realm of trade. International trade, which initially consisted mainly of the trade of goods, is now increasingly focusing on services. This article focuses on the problem of a particular type of service and the barriers on this service (express delivery) that countries place upon it. Not surprisingly, those countries that are the most competitive and have the fewest barriers to trade and problems of monopolization (i.e., those countries that suffer least from monopolistic behavior in their express delivery market) have the most effective and competitive distribution systems