An explorative study to inland waterway transport - the Rhine market

Since 1998 every form of regulation in the inland shipping market has been ruled out. As a result of years of setting minimum prices and dividing cargo’s a situation of over-capacity has occurred. The situation of over-capacity still exists but now in a free market. This situation has some interesting implications.

Risk Assessment Methodology for Critical Infrastructure Protection

The European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection is the main vehicle for the protection of critical infrastructures in Europe. The Directive 2008/114/EC is the legislative instrument of this programme. Risk assessment is an important element that is mentioned throughout the Directive text. However, there is no harmonized methodology in Europe for the assessment of interconnected infrastructures. The present work describes such a methodology and its implementation for the assessment of critical infrastructures of European dimension. The methodology accounts for impact at asset level, evaluates the propagation of a failure at network level due to interdependencies and assess the economic impact of critical infrastructure disruption at national level.JRC.G.6-Security technology assessmen

Protection of Critical Waterborne Transport Infrastructures: An Economic Review

It is essential that transport infrastructures are protected against events which cause their failure. At an optimal level of protection, the sum of protection costs and expected residual damages following from disruptions will be minimized. In most cases however, this optimal level is not achieved because infrastructure protection is susceptible to various market and government failures. This brings us to the question who (a private or public actor) should do how much (the level of protection and intervention). This question is addressed in the present paper. The starting point of the paper is the Directive of the European Council on the identification and designation of European Critical Infrastructures. We review the protection of critical waterborne transport infrastructures from an economic perspective. The review is based on a literature study and several interviews with Critical Infrastructure experts. For the studied infrastructures, we have identified causes and effects of their failure and examined the private–public roles in protecting them. Considering the market and government failures which occur in such configuration of roles, we propose several changes. We conclude that from a national policy perspective there are two important routes: (1) reinforcement of private sector roles among others by defining liabilities and providing information on risks and (2) strengthening of supra-national collaboration via improving and standardizing regulations, cost-sharing initiatives and penalty systems

Bicycle parking at train stations in the Netherlands: Travellers\u27 behaviour and policy options

The combined use of bicycles and trains is a popular means of transport in the Netherlands, experiencing strong growth in recent years. This development is in line with the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management\u27s policy goal of promoting cycling as a stand-alone mode, and in combination with trains. Such active travel policies generate social benefits, such as improved public health, reduced emissions and less congestion. The success of combined bike and train use in the Netherlands however has unresolved issues. Due to overcrowded bicycle storage facilities at large train stations, many bicycles are parked outside these facilities, resulting in public nuisance and inefficient use of space in the areas around train stations. Concurrently, the continued growth of combined bicycle-train use is desired. The policy question therefore is how to facilitate growth while accounting for the current bicycle parking problem. In tackling this challenge, this paper aims to shed more light on the bicycle parking behaviour of bicycle-train travellers. In cooperation with Dutch National Railways, train travellers were given a questionnaire designed to elicit information about their travel behaviour during the two-week period preceding the questionnaire\u27s completion date. More than 3000 questionnaires were completed. Descriptive statistics and binary logit models were used to analyse the resulting data. We found that the privately owned bicycles used on a train trips\u27 activity-end (the so-called ‘second bicycles’) were parked at train station parking facilities approximately four times longer than bicycles used at the train trips\u27 home-end station. Initial estimates revealed that these second bicycles accounted for at least 45% of the bicycle parking pressure witnessed at all train stations in the Netherlands. We also found that among second bicycle owners, low-frequency train use, and using activity-end train stations located in suburbs, are positively associated with long term bicycle parking on the activity-end. Moreover, of all the times bicycles are parked, approximately 10% of activity-end bicycles, and 20% of home-end bicycles, are parked unguarded outside of train station parking facilities. There is a lower probability of home-end bicycles being parked outside of bicycle parking facilities at small train stations than at large stations. Possible solutions to the bicycle parking problem include offering more shared bicycles as alternatives to second bicycles, striving to ban second bicycles from racks situated close to train platforms (by means of pricing and enforcement), and locating parking spaces specifically designated for second bicycles further away from train platforms. This would free up parking spaces close to platforms for home-end bicycles, which are more frequently rotated in and out. Additionally, to further alleviate the parking problem, an awareness-and-warning campaign could be directed at those who wrongly park their home-end bicycles

ANALYSING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FAILURE WITH A RESILIENCE INOPERABILITY INPUT–OUTPUT MODEL

Over the past few years much effort has been made in modelling economic losses resulting from critical infras- tructure failure. It has appeared that including resilience measures in the modelling approach, which may mute the losses considerably, is a challenging task. At the same time it is necessary because it prevents the modeller from generating overestimates. This study presents two directions to improve the modelling of (economic) resilience for which the state-of-the art with respect to dynamic inoperability input–output modelling is taken as a starting point. Firstly, the new model allows for a different recovery path than the traditionally assumed ‘concave up decreasing curve’ describes for a disrupted infrastructure or economic sector in the aftermath of a disaster. In this paper, we explain how the recovery path may depend on the type of disaster. Secondly, the model refines the aspect of ‘inventory’ as a resilience measure. Inventory is interpreted in a broad sense here: it can be any resilience measures which enable an infrastructure or economic sector to continue its supply despite being disrupted. The model is applied to both a simple two-sector illustrative example and a severe winter storm scenario in Europe using economic data from the World Input–Output Database to show its practical usefulness.JRC.G.5-Security technology assessmen

Changes in external costs and infrastructure costs due to modal shift in freight transport in North-western Europe

Abstract Modal shift in freight transport entails moving freight from road to rail, inland waterways, and short sea shipping. In current Dutch and European freight transport policy, modal shift is foreseen to play an important role to mitigate external effects of freight transport. Policy efforts on modal shift are legitimate because the size of the external costs of freight transport are considerable. But can modal shift policies also be effective? In other words, can policy efforts on modal shift result in a decrease of external costs and infrastructure costs due to freight transport? Our research approach falls apart into three steps. In the first step we analyse the transported weight by road on four international freight corridors in North-western Europe that could be transported against at least 10% lower private costs by rail or inland waterways. The share of road transport (transported weight) on the corridors in total road transport in the Netherlands is about 10%. The weight of the cargo that could potentially be shifted on the basis of the transport cost criterium is called the modal shift potential (MSP). We estimate the MSP for the base year 2018 and for the future year 2050. Also in this step, we translate the MSP into changes in transport performance per transport mode. In the second step we determine differences in external costs and user dependent infrastructure costs per unit of transport performance (tonkm) between the transport modes road, rail, and inland waterways. The following external effects are included: greenhouse gas emissions (tank-to-wheel), air pollutant emissions (tank-to-wheel), noise, traffic accidents, congestion, and emissions from fuel and electricity production (well-to-tank) for freight vehicles. Including all these effects, we take a more integral approach than existing studies on the effect of modal shift on the external costs of freight transport. In the third step, we combine the results of steps 1 and 2 and calculate the changes in external costs and infrastructure costs that result from the MSP’s. We find MSP’s of between 35 and 55%, depending on the market segment (container, or non-container transport, and year). These percentages may seem substantial, but we emphasize that on the freight transport corridors rail and inland waterways are (very) competitive to road. Estimates for the decrease in external- and user dependent infrastructure costs if the MSP’s are fully realized point to reductions of €67 million to €150 million for the Netherlands, and €87 million to €136 million abroad for 2018 (considering all countries through which the corridors pass). We emphasize that these are maximum annual savings which can only be achieved if all non-transport cost obstacles for modal shift can be removed. For 2050 estimating a maximum and minimum for the change in external- and infrastructure costs is impossible due to uncertainties in the development of the transport costs and the external costs of freight transport. Because for the year 2018 the MSP’s result in a decrease of external costs and infrastructure costs from freight transport on the corridors, we conclude that in the coming years policy efforts on modal shift can be effective. We can however not conclude anything about the efficiency: are the benefits of policy efforts on modal shift larger than the costs? If that is not the case, taking modal shift measures can eventually not be justified from an economic welfare point of view

Climate Change and Inland Waterway Transport: Welfare Effects of Low Water Levels on the river Rhine

The authors derive the annual welfare effects of low water levels on the river Rhine employing detailed trip data reported by bargemen between January 2003 and July 2005. They find a considerable effect of water levels on freight price per ton and load factor, but the effect on the price per trip is close to zero. Using water level information over a period of almost 20 years, the average annual welfare loss due to low water levels is estimated to be about €28 million. In years with extremely low water levels, such as in 2003, the loss amounts to about €91 million, about 13 per cent of the market turnover in the part of the Rhine market considered. © 2007 LSE and the University of Bath

Welfare effects of low water levels on the river Rhine through the Inland Waterway Transport Sector

The authors derive the annual welfare effects of low water levels on the river Rhine employing detailed trip data reported by bargemen between January 2003 and July 2005. They find a considerable effect of water levels on freight price per ton and load factor, but the effect on the price per trip is close to zero. Using water level information over a period of almost 20 years, the average annual welfare loss due to low water levels is estimated to be about C28 £28 million. In years with extremely low water levels, such as in 2003, the loss amounts to about £91 million, about 13 per cent of the market turnover in the part of the Rhine market considered

Welfare effects of low water levels on the river Rhine through the Inland Waterway Transport Sector

The authors derive the annual welfare effects of low water levels on the river Rhine employing detailed trip data reported by bargemen between January 2003 and July 2005. They find a considerable effect of water levels on freight price per ton and load factor, but the effect on the price per trip is close to zero. Using water level information over a period of almost 20 years, the average annual welfare loss due to low water levels is estimated to be about C28 £28 million. In years with extremely low water levels, such as in 2003, the loss amounts to about £91 million, about 13 per cent of the market turnover in the part of the Rhine market considered