Modelling the Cost Performance of a Given Logistics Network Operating Under Regular and Irregular Conditions

This paper develops an analytical model for the assessment of the cost performance of a given logistics network operating under regular and irregular (disruptive) conditions. In addition, the paper aims to carry out a sensitivity analysis of this cost with respect to changes of the most influencing factors. In particular, this is expected to investigate the vulnerability of this network with respect to particular disruptive events. The logistics network under consideration consists of the manufacturers and retailers/consumers as the origin and destination nodes of the goods flow concerned, and the transport system (links and services) connecting them. The nodes are characterized by the goods’ production and consumption rates, and the level of inventories, and related costs. The transport system is characterized by the transport mode that is exclusively used in the network, its frequency of service, the goods’ delivery time (speed), and the related costs. Irregular conditions are characterized by the intensity of the impact and duration of the disruptive event, which, in the given case, is assumed to completely cut off the transport services in the network. The model uses inputs reflecting these characteristics. The output consists of the network’s total and average cost per unit of goods, which is estimated depending on the type and delivery frequency of the transport mode that is exclusively used, and on the duration of the disruptive event. The model is applied to the generic hypothetical logistic network using data from the European logistics networks

Congestion Charging at Airports: Dealing with an Inherent Complexity

Air transport delays have increased during the past decade both in Europe and US. The main reasons have been continuously growing air transport demand, constrained capacity of the system infrastructure, and disruption of services caused by bad weather, failures of the infrastructure components, facilities and equipment, and industrial action of the aviation staff. Growing demand combined with constrained infrastructure capacity and frequently disrupted by a bad weather have been identified as the most frequent causes of congestion and delays at large airports. Potential remedies have shown to be improvement of utilisation of the existing infrastructure capacity by introducing technological and operational innovations, physical expansion of this capacity, and management of access to the scarce infrastructure capacity. The first option has shown to have the very limited effect. In many cases, the second option has been impossible to be implemented due to the various political and environmental constraints in terms of land take in both the airport airside and landside area. The solution of management of access to the existing scarce infrastructure capacity (i.e., ?demand management) has recently been considered as an additional viable option to relief the congestion problem. This paper deals with modelling of management of access to a congested airport by using congestion charging. The complexity of setting up a relevant congestion charge (toll) based on the system delays imposed by an additional aircraft on itself and on the others during peak-periods has been particularly elaborated. For such a purpose, queuing model of a congested airport, as an essential tool for estimating the aircraft delays, particularly in cases of changes of the airport capacity caused by disruptions, is developed. The existing theory of congestion pricing is upgraded by an explicit introduction of the differences between particular customers - the aircraft - requesting service during peaks in terms of the arrival time, type (seat capacity, operational cost), type of flight (short, medium, long-haul), and actual number of passengers on board. These all are also the most important factors expected to influence a tool, which, if consequently applied, is expected to change in line with changes of these factors. This also illustrates controversy and complexity of implementing such tool, the process, which is under consideration (i.e., in a rudimentary phase) at some airports in the U.S. and Europe. KEY WORDS: air transport, airport, queuing theory, congestion pricin

An Application of the Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Analysis to the Selection of a New Hub Airport

The paper illustrates the application of three Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM)methods to the problem of the selection of a new hub airport for a hypothetical EuropeanUnion (EU) airline assumed to operate within the EU liberalised air transport market. Thethree MCDM methods used are SAW (Simple Additive Weighting), TOPSIS (Technique forOrder Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution) and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process),and they are applied to a preselected set of alternative airports. The attributes (criteria) aredefined to express the performance of particular alternatives (airports) relevant for aDecision-Maker (DM), in this case the EU airline in question.In addition to illustrating the three methods, this application of three different MCDMmethods is intended to lead to a preliminary judgment about their usefulness assupplementary decision-making tools for eventual practical use. The example in which sevenpreselected European airports are ranked according to nine performance criteria, indicatesthat all three methods, if applied to the same problem and using the same method fordetermining the importance of the different criteria, produce the same result

A Deep Dive into Understanding Tumor Foci Classification using Multiparametric MRI Based on Convolutional Neural Network

Deep learning models have had a great success in disease classifications using large data pools of skin cancer images or lung X-rays. However, data scarcity has been the roadblock of applying deep learning models directly on prostate multiparametric MRI (mpMRI). Although model interpretation has been heavily studied for natural images for the past few years, there has been a lack of interpretation of deep learning models trained on medical images. This work designs a customized workflow for the small and imbalanced data set of prostate mpMRI where features were extracted from a deep learning model and then analyzed by a traditional machine learning classifier. In addition, this work contributes to revealing how deep learning models interpret mpMRI for prostate cancer patients stratification

Modelling the Full Costs of an Intermodal and Road Freight Transport Network

This paper develops a model for calculating comparable combined internal and external costs of intermodal and road freight transport networks. Internal costs consist of the operational-private costs borne by the transport and intermodal terminal operators, and the time costs of goods tied in transit. The external costs include the costs of the impacts of both networks on society and the environment such as local and global air pollution, congestion, noise pollution, and traffic accidents. The model is applied to the simplified configurations of both networks using the inputs from the European freight transport system. The objective is to investigate some effects of European Union policy, which aims to internalise the external costs of transport, on the prospective competition between two networks from a social perspective

Light Rail Rapid Transit systems for more sustainable ground accessibility of airports

This paper investigates the potential of Light Rail Rapid Transit (LRRT) to mitigate the environmental and social burden of ground access systems of an airport. This implies, on the one hand, LRRT\u27s capability in mitigating externalities in terms of noise, air pollution/climate change, traffic incidents/accidents and congestion of airport ground access systems and, on the other, the provision of sufficient capacity to accommodate generally increasing volumes of both air passenger and airport employee demand by connecting the airport to its core catchment area. A methodology for assessing the capability of LRRT operating as an airport ground access system is developed. This methodology consists of models to analyze and predict demand and capacity for an LRRT system and models to quantify the externalities of particular airport ground access systems as well as assessing their prospective savings thanks to the introduction of an LRRT system. The methodology is applied to a large European airport – Amsterdam Schiphol (the Netherlands) – using a ‘what-if?’ scenario approach

An assessment of the performance of the European long intermodal freight trains (LIFTS)

Intermodal rail/road freight transport has always been considered as a competitive alternative to its road freight counterpart in the European medium- to long-distance corridors (markets). Such consideration has been based on the increasing competitiveness of some innovative rail services and the existing and prospective performance of both modes in terms of the full social - internal or operational and external - costs. The most recent innovation of rail technologies and related services launched by some European railway companies, still at the conceptual level, is the Long Intermodal Freight Train (LIFT). This is supposed to be a block train operating in long-distance corridors (markets) with a substantial and regular freight demand. This paper develops analytical models for assessing the performance of the LIFTs, the already-operating Conventional Intermodal Freight Trains (CIFTs), and their road counterpart as well. The performance consists of the full - internal (private) and external - costs of the door-to-door delivery of loading units - containers, swap-bodies, and semi-trailers. The internal costs embrace the operational costs of the transport (rail and road) and intermodal terminal operators. The external costs include the costs of the impacts of door-to-door delivery of loading units on society and the environment. These negative externalities include noise, air pollution, traffic accidents, and congestion. The models are applied to a simplified version of intermodal and road transport system using inputs from the European freight transport sector. The aims are to compare the full costs of particular modalities in order to investigate the potential of the LIFTs as compared with the CIFTs in improving the internal efficiency of the rail freight sector and its competitiveness with respect to its road counterpart. In addition, the paper attempts to assess some effects on the potential modal shift of European Union transport policies on internalizing transport externalities

An assessment of the performance of the European long intermodal freight trains (LIFTS)

Intermodal rail/road freight transport has always been considered as a competitive alternative to its road freight counterpart in the European medium- to long-distance corridors (markets). Such consideration has been based on the increasing competitiveness of some innovative rail services and the existing and prospective performance of both modes in terms of the full social - internal or operational and external - costs. The most recent innovation of rail technologies and related services launched by some European railway companies, still at the conceptual level, is the Long Intermodal Freight Train (LIFT). This is supposed to be a block train operating in long-distance corridors (markets) with a substantial and regular freight demand. This paper develops analytical models for assessing the performance of the LIFTs, the already-operating Conventional Intermodal Freight Trains (CIFTs), and their road counterpart as well. The performance consists of the full - internal (private) and external - costs of the door-to-door delivery of loading units - containers, swap-bodies, and semi-trailers. The internal costs embrace the operational costs of the transport (rail and road) and intermodal terminal operators. The external costs include the costs of the impacts of door-to-door delivery of loading units on society and the environment. These negative externalities include noise, air pollution, traffic accidents, and congestion. The models are applied to a simplified version of intermodal and road transport system using inputs from the European freight transport sector. The aims are to compare the full costs of particular modalities in order to investigate the potential of the LIFTs as compared with the CIFTs in improving the internal efficiency of the rail freight sector and its competitiveness with respect to its road counterpart. In addition, the paper attempts to assess some effects on the potential modal shift of EU (European Union) transport policies on internalizing transport externalities.Long intermodal freight train(s) Performance Full costs Externalities Competition

Comparison of the quality of rail and air networks in West, Central and Eastern Europe

The paper deals with an analysis of the rail and air passenger transport network spreading over West, Central and Eastern Europe. The rail network consists of the railway stations located in the particular places (cities) assumed to be the network nodes and the trains moving along the single/ double tracks (being a portion of railway infrastructure) connecting them (the network links). The air transport network consists of the airports located close to the particular places (cities) assumed to be the network's nodes, and the flights scheduled between them (the links of the air transport network). The number and type of rail and air connections between particular places (nodes), their surrogates defined as the passenger schedule delays (e.g. defer times), and schedule travel times between particular origins and destinations have been estimated for both networks. The analysis could be useful for the following purposes--various comparisons of the quality of services offered by different transport networks serving the passenger flows in Europe; synthesizing the generalized travel cost functions determining the conditions for choice of transport mode under given circumstances; design of specific monitoring tool being convenient for registrating the significant changes in the supply of transport capacities that may occur due to the variations of transport demand, overall and specific improvements in the transport infrastructure, operations and services, and general consolidation of the processes of European economic, social and political integrations.transeuropean networkspassenger transportrailairquality of services.