Transportation Modes

A. A Diversity of Modes
B. Intermodal Transportation
C. Passengers or Freight?
1. Transportation Modes
Transport modes:
• Vehicles:
Mobile segment
Supporting the mobility of passengers, freight and information
• Infrastructures:
Fixed segment
Supporting movements
• Three basic types:
Land (road, rail and pipelines)
Water (shipping)
Air
• Each mode had a set of technical, operational and
commercial characteristics.
Performance Comparison for Selected Freight
Modes
Vehicle Capacity 1 Barge Equivalency
1500 Tons
52,500 Bushels 1
Barge 453,600 Gallons
22,500 Tons
787,500 Bushels 0.06
15 barges on tow 6,804,000 Gallons
100 Tons
3,500 Bushels 15
Hopper car 30,240 Gallons
10,000 Tons
350,000 Bushels 0.15
100 car train unit 3,024,000 Gallons
26 Tons
910 Bushels 57.7
Semi-trailer truck 7,865 Gallons
A Diversity of Modes

1. Road Transportation
2. Rail Transportation
3. Pipelines
4. Water Transportation
5. Air Transportation
6. Modal Competition
1. Road Transportation
Overview
• Large consumers of space.
• Lowest level of physical constraints among transportation
modes.
• Environmental constrains are significant in road
construction.
• Average operational flexibility (vehicles can serve several
purposes).
• High maintenance costs, both for the vehicles and
infrastructures.
• Linked to light industries (rapid movements of freight in
small batches).
1. Road Transportation (cont’d)
History
• The first land roads were trails (hunting).
• With the first nation-states trails started to be used for
commercial purposes.
• Domestification of animals such as horses, mules and
camels.
• Wheeled vehicles encouraged construction of better
roads.
• Requires a level of labor organization and administrative
control:
Provided by a central government offering a level of military protection
over trade routes.
3,000 BC the first road systems in Mesopotamia.
Roman Empire 300 BC built the first comprehensive road network.
1. Road Transportation (cont’d)
Modern road networks
• Creation of modern nation-states (17th century):
National road transportation systems were formally established.
France: Royal Roads system spanning 24,000 km.
Great Britain: 32,000 km system of private toll turnpikes.
United States: 3 million km of roads, most unpaved, was in
operation by the early 20th century.
Road engineering
• Construction of reliable and low cost hard surface roads.
• Scottish engineer McAdam developed a process:
Hard and waterproof road surfaces made by cemented crushed
stone, bound together either with water or with bitumen.
• Improved the reliability and the travel speed on roads.
Macadam Road Construction, Maryland 1823
1. Road Transportation (cont’d)

National highway systems

• Road development accelerated in after WWII.
• American Interstate highway system:
Initiated in 1956.
About 56,000 km was built from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Additional 9,000 km between 1975 and 1998.
Overall, about 70,000 km of four-lane and six-lane highways were
constructed.
Linking all major American cities, coast to coast.
• Trans-Canada highway completed in 1962.
• By the 1970s, every modern nation has constructed a
national highway system.
1. Road Transportation (cont’d)

Public sector
• Main supplier of road transport infrastructures.
• Unpractical to use a similar pricing system than a commercial
enterprise.
• Most roads are not economically profitable but must be socially
present as they are essential to service populations.
• Only possible on specific trunks that have an important and stable
traffic.
• Toll roads:
Highways linking large cities.
Bridge and tunnels.
• Can expropriate the necessary land for road construction.
• Economies of scale and their indivisibility.
1. Road Transportation (cont’d)

Costs
• Rights of passage
• Development costs (planning)
• Construction and expropriation costs
• Maintenance and administration costs
• Losses in land taxes (urban environment)
• External costs (accidents and pollution)
Income
• Registration
• Gas (taxes)
• Purchases of vehicles (taxes)
• Tolls, parking, and insurance fees
2. Rail Transportation
Overview
• Composed of a traced path on which are bound vehicles.
• Average level of physical constrains:
Linked to the types of locomotives.
Affected by the gradient.
• Heavy industries are traditionally linked with rail transport
systems.
• Containerization:
Improved the flexibility of rail transportation.
Linking it with road and maritime modes.
2. Rail Transportation (cont’d)
Geographical setting
• Established differently because different goals were to be
achieved.
• Access to resources.
• Servicing regional economies.
• Territorial control.
Rail monopolies
• High level of economic and territorial control.
• Monopoly in Europe and oligopoly in North America.
• Regular (scheduled), but rigid, services.
• Transport mode the most constrained by the
physiography.
2. Rail Transportation (cont’d)

Technical issues
• Space consumption:
Small along lines
Important at terminals
• Gradient and turns
• Vehicles:
Very flexible in terms of vehicles and there is a wide variety
of them filling different purposes.
Bulk, liquids, grain, containers, passengers, cattle, cars, coal.
• Gauge:
Standard gauge of 1.4351 meters for North America and for
most Western Europe.
2. Rail Transportation (cont’d)
Economic rationale
• Market area and capacity:
Transport raw materials over long distances.
Move passengers and freight (cars, agricultural equipment,
etc.)
The average length was 1,300 km compared with 700 km for
trucks.
Intermodal integration favored segmentation and
specialization.
• Costs:
High construction and maintenance costs.
Shipping costs decrease with distance and load.
Transshipments and train assembly increase costs.
Rail operating costs: labor (up to 60%), locomotives (16%) and
wagons, fuel, maintenance and equipment (24%).
2. Rail Transportation (cont’d)

Benefits:
• Accelerated the industrialization process.
• Accelerated economic development and human settlements.
• Multiplier effects on industrial activities.
• Safety; after air transportation, the safest mode.
Regulation:
• Highly dependent from government subsidies.
• Governments financing, mainly for the sake of national economic
imperatives.
2. Rail Transportation (cont’d)

High speed train networks

• Require special lines, but can also use the existing lines at a
lower speed
• Speed of about 300 km/h.
• Separation between passenger and freight traffic.
• By-passing several centers of less importance.
• Over average distances, they have proved to be able to
compete effectively with air transportation.
3. Pipelines

Overview
• Single purpose: carry one commodity from a location to another.
• Built largely with private capital:
Has to be in place before any revenues are generated; significant
capital commitment.
• Large quantities of products where no other feasible means of
transport (usually water) is available.
• Two main products dominate pipeline traffic:
Oil and gas.
17% of all tons-km in the US.
• Locally pipelines are significant for the transport of water.
• Low physical constraints:
The landscape and pergelisol in arctic / subarctic environments.
3. Pipelines (cont’d)

Pipeline systems
• Construction costs vary according to the diameter:
Increase proportionally with the distance and with the
viscosity of fluids.
• Longest pipelines:
Gas pipeline: Alberta to Sarnia (Canada); 2,911 km.
Oil pipeline: Transiberian; 9,344 km in length.
• Trans Alaskan pipeline:
1,300 km long.
Built under difficult conditions.
Above the ground for most of its path.
• System has very little flexibility:
Cannot respond well to geographical fluctuations of the
supply or demand.
Trans-Alaska Pipeline
4. Water Transport

Issues
• Dominant support of global trade:
International and seaborne trade are interrelated.
96% of the world trade is carried by maritime transportation
(mass).
• International trade and maritime transportation:
Interrelated.
25,000 billion tons-km are on average transported annually.
7,000 by rail and 3,000 by road.
71% of all freight shipped globally.
For every $1,000 of exports, there is one ton of freight being
shipped by maritime transportation.
4. Water Transport (cont’d)
Domains of maritime circulation
• Geographical by its physical attributes:
71% of the terrestrial surface.
• Strategic by its control.
• Commercial by its usage.
Maritime routes
• Corridors of a few kilometers in width.
• Trying to avoid the discontinuities of land transport.
• Function:
Obligatory points of passage, which are strategic places.
Physical constraints (coasts, winds, marine currents, depth,
reefs, ice).
Political borders.
• The majority of maritime circulation takes place along coastlines.
Domains of Maritime Circulation

St. Lawrence / Great Lakes Rhine / Ruhr / Danube Yangtze

Bosporus Chang Jiang
Gibraltar Perl
Suez
Mississippi Hormuz

Bab el-Mandab
Panama Nile Mekong
Malacca

Amazon

Good Hope

Magellan
4. Water Transport (cont’d)

Maritime enclaves
• Countries that have difficulties to undertake maritime trade:
Not part of an oceanic domain of maritime circulation.
• Requires agreements with neighboring countries:
Access to a port facility through a road, a rail line or through
a river.
• Not necessarily imply an exclusion from international trade:
Substantially higher transport costs.
On average 50% higher than countries that are not
landlocked.
Less than 40% of the trade volume of the median coastal
country.
May impair economic development.
Maritime Enclaves and Accessibility

Less than 700 km

More than 700 km
Maritime Enclave
4. Water Transport (cont’d)

Global fleet
• About 85,000 ships of more than 100 tons.
• Half of them performing transport functions and the other half
performing service functions (e.g. tugs).
• Growth of the number of ships as well as their average size.
• Oceanic maritime traffic dominantly concerns freight.
4. Water Transport (cont’d)
Passenger vessels
• Passenger ferries:
• People are carried across relatively short bodies of water in
a shuttle-type service.
• Tend to be small and fast vessels.
• Cruise ships:
• Passengers are taken on trips of various durations, usually
over several days.
• Usually very large capacity ships.
• Before air transportation, serviced by liner passenger ships,
dominantly over the North Atlantic.
Roll on-Roll off (RORO) vessels
• Allow cars, trucks and trains to be loaded directly on board.
• The largest are the car carriers that transport vehicles from
assembly plants to the main markets.
Cruise Ship
Channel Ferry Ship Entering the Port of Le
Havre, France
RO-RO Cargo Ship
4. Water Transport (cont’d)

Bulk cargo
• Freight, both dry or liquid, that is not packaged.
• Minerals (oil, coal, iron ore) and grains.
• Requires the use of specialized ships such as oil tankers as well as
specialized transshipment and storage facilities.
• Single origin, destination and client.
• Prone to economies of scale.
Break-bulk cargo
• General cargo that has been packaged in some way with the use
of bags, boxes or drums.
• Numerous origins, destinations and clients.
• Before containerization, economies of scale were difficult to
achieve.
The Regina Maersk
4. Water Transport (cont’d)

Growth of maritime traffic

• Increase in energy and mineral cargoes:
Growing demand from developed economies.
Many developing countries, such as China, are also
increasingly involved in importing raw materials.
• Globalization:
International division of the production and trade
liberalization.
• Technical improvements in ship and maritime terminals.
• Economies of scale:
Remain a low cost mode.
Strengthened by containerization
4. Water Transport (cont’d)
Technical innovations
Size:
• Expresses type as well as capacity.
• Each time the size of a ship is doubled, its capacity is cubed.
• The largest tankers (ULCC) are around 500,000 dwt
• The largest dry bulk carriers are around 350,000 dwt.
• Remaining constraints in ship size are the capacity of ports and
canals.
Speed
• Average speed of ships is about 15 knots (1 knot = 1 marine mile =
1,853 meters), which is 28 km per hour.
• A ship can travel about 575 km per day.
• Recent ships can travel at speeds between 25 to 30 knots (45 to 55
km per hour).
• Reaching higher maritime speeds remains a challenge which is
excessively costly to overcome.
4. Water Transport (cont’d)
Specialization of ships:
• General cargo ships, tankers, grain carriers, barges, mineral
carriers, bulk carriers, methane carriers and container ships.
Ship design:
• The hulls are the result of considerable efforts to minimize
energy consumption, construction costs and improve safety.
• A ship can take between 4 months (container and crude carriers)
and 1 year to build (cruise ship).
Automation:
• Self-unloading ships
• Computer assisted navigation (crew needs are reduced and safety
is increased) and global positioning systems.
• Smaller crews being required to operate larger ships.
4. Water Transport (cont’d)
Flags of convenience
• 46% of the ships and about 62% of the global tonnage (1998).
• Regulation:
Under maritime law, the owner is bound to the rules and
regulations of the country of registration.
• Registry costs:
Registry costs are on average between 30 to 50% lower than
those of North America and Western Europe.
• Operating costs:
From 12 to 27% lower than traditional registry fleets.
Savings are coming from lower manning expenses.
Lower standards in terms of salary and benefits.