Flying green from a carbon neutral airport : the case of Brussels

The aviation sector is one of the fastest growing emitters of greenhouse gases worldwide. In addition, airports have important local environmental impacts, mainly in the form of noise pollution and deterioration in air quality. Although noise nuisance in the vicinity of airports is recognized as an important problem of the urban environment which is often addressed by regulation, other environmental problems associated with aviation are less widely acknowledged. In the climate debate, the importance of which is rising, aviation has remained under the radar for decades. In the present paper, we use the case of Brussels Airport (Belgium) to demonstrate that the local perception of air travel-related environmental problems may be heavily influenced by the communication strategy of the airport company in question. Basing our analysis on publicly available data, communication initiatives, media reports, and policy documents, we find that (1) the noise impact of aviation is recognized and mainly described in an institutionalized format, (2) the impact of aviation on local air quality is ignored, and (3) the communication on climate impact shows little correspondence or concern with the actual effects. These findings are relevant for other airports and sectors, since the type of environmental communication produced by airport companies can also be observed elsewhere

As companhias aéreas de baixo custo e o desenvolvimento dos destinos turísticos: um estudo de caso do aeroporto do Porto, Portugal

Mobility is one of the characteristics of modern society. The world today, despite the uncertainties brought by globalization is an interconnected reality of networks, whether physical or virtual. In Europe this mobility is higher than before due to the new offer of routes and frequencies of airlines, mainly of the low cost carriers (LCC). Portugal is one of the countries that grew in terms of new routes, new destinations and above all new customers with economic impacts in the regions. Over the last decade, LCC at Oporto (OPO) airport have boosted their traffic volume by approximately 260%. The evolution of OPO airport, generated by LCC, has meant that other regional airports have followed this trend and have also experienced a positive and growing net impact on their local economy. The main issue of this study is to analyse the evolution of LCC air traffic at Francisco Sa Carneiro Airport in OPO and its economic impact on this airport's area of influence. We use a cost-benefit analysis model to determine the costs, benefits and net impact of low cost routes on the development of the local economy between 2005 and 2012. In 2005 these carriers started operating at OPO Airport.A mobilidade é uma das características da sociedade moderna. O mundo de hoje, apesar das incertezas trazidas pela globalização, é uma realidade interconectada de redes, sejam elas físicas ou virtuais. Na Europa, essa mobilidade é maior do que antes devido à nova oferta de rotas e frequências de companhias aéreas, principalmente das companhias de baixo custo (LCC). Portugal é um dos países que cresceu quer em termos de novas rotas, novos destinos e, sobretudo, novos clientes, gerando impactos económicos regionais. Ao longo da última década, as companhias áreas de baixo custo que operam no aeroporto do Porto (OPO) aumentaram o volume de tráfego em aproximadamente 260%. Esta evolução, gerada pelas LCC, significou que outros aeroportos regionais seguiram essa tendência e também experimentaram um impacto líquido positivo e crescente na sua economia local. Este estudo tem como principal objetivo analisar a evolução do tráfego aéreo do LCC no Aeroporto Francisco Sá Carneiro (OPO) e o seu impacto económico na área de influência. Foi utilizado um modelo de análise de custo-benefício para determinar os custos, benefícios e impacto líquido das rotas de baixo custo no desenvolvimento da economia local entre 2005 e 2012. As operadoras áreas de baixo custo começaram a operar no aeroporto OPO em 2005.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Air passenger transport and regional development : cause and effect in Europe

This article scrutinizes the mutual and complex causal relationship between air passenger transport and regional development in the European NUTS2-regions with heterogeneous Granger causality analysis between 2002 and 2011. Employment is used as a relatively robust and measurable indicator of a region's development and employment in the services sector and in the manufacturing sector is treated separately to discern basic sectoral variances. The proposed methodology allows investigating (i) if air transport in the European regions causally influences employment, (ii) if employment also leads to higher transport levels, and (iii) regional variations in this causal relationship. The results show that both directions of causality occur among the European urban regions, albeit very geographically fragmented. This indicates that air passenger transport is a necessary part of, but not sufficient condition for generating regional development. The more abundant relationships for employment in the services sector confirm the sensitivity of the services industry to air passenger transport

Improving accessibility at airports

Analyse and evaluate the accessibility at airports to improve the role of this infrastructure at regional level

Intermodal passenger transport and destination competitiveness in Greece

Effective transport is impeded by a number of caveats, including problems of accessibility to the destination, poor infrastructure, social, and environmental issues. In this context, the implementation of intermodal solutions is essential to meet customer demand, resolve problems of transport supply, and enhance destination competitiveness. Based on a suitable theoretical framework, this paper examines the attitude of Greek passengers towards intermodal transport and their willingness-to-pay more to be provided with such a seamless service to allow for (partial at least) cost recovery of the related transport infrastructure. The findings suggest that there are many respondents who would actually pay more to be provided with a door-to-door intermodal travel experience; answers are highly dependent on their place of residence

Posterior analysis of random taste coefficients in air travel behaviour modelling

Increasing use is being made of random coefficients structures, such as mixed logit, in the analysis of air travel choice behaviour. These models have the advantage of being able to retrieve random variations in sensitivities across travellers. An important issue, however, arises in the computation of willingness to pay indicators, such as the valuation of travel time savings, on the basis of randomly distributed coefficients. Indeed, with the standard approach of using simulation of the ratios across random draws, major problems can be caused by outliers, leading to biased trade-offs, which in turn lead to major issues in policy analyses. Here, a different approach is explored, making use of individual-specific draws from the random distributions, conditioned on the observed sequence of choices for each respondent. An analysis making use of stated preference data for airport and airline choice confirms the advantages of the approach using conditional draws, producing much more realistic distributional patterns for a range of willingness to pay indicators

Transport in the Trans-Pennine Corridor: Present Conditions and Future Options. Interregional Study Working Paper 3.

This paper reports on a desk study carried out by the Institute for Transport Studies as part of a wider study of opportunities for inter-regional working in the trans-Pennine corridor, considering economic, environmental and transport issues. It draws together available information on transport and movement flows in the trans-Pennine corridor. These patterns of movement are examined from a broad perspective which considers intra-regional, inter- regional and international movements within and across the study area. The report proposes a regional package approach to transport, based on demand management and modal transfer

The New Airport and its Urban Region: Evaluating Transport Linkages

Privatized airports are emerging as significant transportation and logistics hubs competing with traditional CBDs as activity centres with significant environmental, social and economic impacts. The major implications for transportation planning and evaluation of options have been highlighted as: the difficulty in arriving at an agreed set of relative weights to be attached to each objective; the need to undertake any interface analysis at the regional scale; the need to model the complex nature of the interaction between mixed land use activities within the emerging airport precinct and the supply, pricing and regulation of the relevant transportation links; and the relevance of 'option value' concepts when evaluating transit access to airports

Airport Development and Regional Economic Growth in China

Air transport has experienced phenomenal growth in China over the last 30 years, but studies on China’s airport development are few. This paper aims to fill in this literature gap by focusing on the determinants of airport development in the Chinese regions using the most up-to-day and comprehensive data on China’s airports and their related economic and geographical variables. The empirical results based on an augmented production function indicate that airport development is positively related with economic growth, industrial structure, population density, and openness, but negatively related with ground transportation. The growth of airport transportation in the eastern region is slower than in the inland areas, implying a more significant substitution effect of air transport on ground transport in the less densely populated areas, irrespective of economic activities. The results have useful policy implications as any regional transportation development plan has to simultaneously consider the competitive and supplementary effects of both air and land transports in a specific location.Airport Development, Regional Economic Growth, China

Virtual Integration Platforms (VIP) –A Concept for Integrated and Interdisciplinary Air Transportation Research and Assessment

The paper descibes a new methodology for a holistic development of air transportation concepts. The Virtual Integration Plattform (VIP) concept is based on an IT tool chain as well as human collaborative methods to deal with complex systems. As a result the definitions of future air transportation concepts for short range "Quiet and Clean", long range "Comfortable and Clean" and individual transport "Fast and Flexible" are presente