1. Topic 3 – Transportation Modes
Characteristics
A Diversity of Modes
Intermodal Transportation

2. 5. Air Transport
Context
Air routes are practically unlimited, but several concentrations:
North Atlantic.
Inside North America and Europe.
Over the North Pacific.
Inside Asia.
Multidimensional constraints:
Site (a commercial plane needs about 3,300 meters of track for landing and take off).
Climate, fog and aerial currents.
Air activities:
Linked to the tertiary and quaternary sectors:
Finance and tourism that require movements of people.
Accommodating growing quantities of high value freight.

3. World Air Travel and World Air Freight Carried, 1950-2008
Source: Air Transport Association.

4. 5. Air Transport Air Space Air space use
Segment of the atmosphere that is under the jurisdiction of a nation or under an international agreement for its use.
Two major components:
Land-based; takeoffs and landings.
Air-based; composed of air corridors.
Air corridors up to 12,500 meters.
Limited to the use of predetermined corridors.
Air space use
Air space exclusively belongs to the country under it.
Access to the land and air-based components:
Dependent on agreements between nations and airline companies.
Air freedom rights.

5. Air Freedom Rights First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Eight
Home
Country B
Country A
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Eight
Ninth

6. 5. Air Transport Short historical overview
First paid passenger (1914):
Between Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Airfare of $10; $200 in today’s money.
First commercial international service (1919):
Between England and France.
Airmail services:
Very important in the initial years.
Airplanes were of low carrying capacity.
A source of income (e.g. US air postal routes).
Threshold year (1956):
More passengers were carried by air than by long distance (sleeper) rail.
The end of long distance passenger rail and trans-oceanic liner services.

7. US Post Office Airmail Routes, 1921
Source: adapted from Davies, 1964: Figure 6.

8. Selected Transcontinental DC-3 Routes, Late 1930s
Source: Based on historic timetables available at
80% of all aircrafts were DC-3s (1941)

9. Early Intercontinental Air Routes, 1930s
Source: adapted from B. J. Graham (1995) Geography and Air Transport, New York: Wiley, p. 13.

10. 5. Air Transport Development of air transportation after WWII
Technical improvements:
Jet engine considerably reduced distances (1958: Boeing 707).
Greater speeds and improved ranges.
Almost every part of the world can be serviced in less than 24 hours.
Rising affluence:
Linked with income and economic output growth.
Disposable income available for leisure.
International tourism and air transportation are mutually interdependent.
Globalization:
Trade networks established by multinational corporations.
4% measured by weight but more than 40% by value.

11. Shortest Air Route between London and Sydney, 1955 - 2006

12. Main Commercial Passenger Aircraft, 1935-2008
Year of First Commercial Service
Speed (km/hr)
Maximum Range at Full Payload (km)
Seating Capacity
Douglas DC-3
1935
346
563 30
Douglas DC-7
1953
555
5,810 52
Boeing
1958
897
6,820
110
Boeing
1963
917
5,000 94
Boeing
1970
907
9,045
385
McDonnell Douglas DC-10
1971
908
7,415
260
Airbus A300
1974
847
3,420
269
Boeing
1982
954
5,855
216
Boeing
1989
939
13,444
416
Boeing ER
1995
1030
14,300
300
Airbus A
2003
886
15,800
313
Airbus A380
2007
930
14,800
Boeing 787-8
2008
1040
15,700
250
Source: adapted from T.R. Leinbach and J.T. Bowen (2004) Airspaces: Air Transport, Technology and Society, in D.B. Brunn, S.L. Cutter and J.W. Harrington (eds) Geography and Technology, Dordretch, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

13. Development Costs for Selected Aircraft
Year of First Service
Development Costs, Constant 2004 Dollars
Douglas DC-3
1935
4,300,000
Douglas DC-6
1946
144,000,000
Boeing 707
1958
1,300,000,000
Boeing 747
1970
3,700,000,000
Boeing 777
1995
7,000,000,000
Airbus A380
2007
14,400,000,000
Source: Even after adjusting for inflation, the development costs for new airliners have skyrocketed.

14. Trend in Aircraft Fuel Efficiency (Fuel burned per Seat)
Source: Adapted from Aviation and the Global Atmosphere.

15. Average Airfare (roundtrip) between New York and London, 1946-2004 (in 2004 dollars)
Source: Bowen, J. (2004) “World-Shapers: The Geographical Implications of Several Influential Jet Aircraft”, paper presented at the 2004 Conference of the American Association of Geographers.

16. Number of Yearly Fatalities due to Air Transport Crashes, 1918-2009
Causes:
Human error (67%); Technical (20%); Weather (6%)
Occurrences:
Less than 10 km from an airport (54%)
Take off (21%) and Landing (50%)
Source: Aircraft Crashes Record Office, Geneva (

17. New York / Hong Kong Air Routes: Conventional and Polar

18. Selected Ultra-Long-Range Nonstop Airline Routes
From To
Airline
Aircraft
Flying Time
Distance (km)
Singapore
New York
Airbus A
18:35
15,335
Los Angeles
18:20
14,104
Bangkok
Thai International
17:30
13,950
Hong Kong
Continental
Boeing ER/LR
16:00
12,952
Chicago
United
Boeing
15:55
12,517
Toronto
Air Canada
15:30
12,550
Melbourne
Qantas
15:20
12,751
Karachi
Pakistan
15:15
11,671
Atlanta
Johannesburg
South African
15:05
13,575

19. 5. Air Transport Airline companies
Around 900 airlines operating 11,600 commercial aircrafts.
Highly capital intensive.
Labor intensive, with limited room to lessen those labor requirements.
Average number of 200 seats per plane.
Dominant share of the traffic is assumed by large passengers and freight carriers.
Many used to be state-owned.

20. World’s 10 Largest Passengers and Freight Airlines, 2007
Source: IATA, World Air Transport Statistics

21. Operating Expenses of the Airline Industry, 2004
Source: ATA Annual Report

22. Market Share of World Airline Traffic, 2005
Oneworld
Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, LAN Airlines, Qantas
Star
Adria Airways, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airlines, Asiana, Austrian, Blue1, bmi british midland, Croatia Airlines, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, SAS Scandinavian, Singapore, South African, Thai Airways, Swiss, TAP Portugal, Spanair, United, US Airways, Varig
SkyTeam
Air France-KLM, Delta Airlines, Northwest, Continental, Korean Air, Alitalia, Aeroflot, Aeromexico, CSA Czech
Strategic alliances
Joint booking systems, exchange of shares, and a reorganization of their services in order to minimize redundancy.
Increased market dominance but also increased competition between major markets.
Source: Airline Business (2006) Airline Alliance Survey 2006, Sept., pp

23. Strategies of Low-Cost Carriers
On-board operations
Optimum use of seating space.
Minimal crew.
Limited and paying cabin service.
Aircraft operations
Few (often one) types of aircraft used to minimize maintenance costs.
Stair boarding instead of air bridges.
Maximal usage of runway length (take-off thrust and braking on landing).
Fast turn around to maximize aircraft use.
No freight being carried.
Service network
Point-to-point services.
Destinations commonly of less than two hours apart.
Usage of secondary airports (lower gate rates).
Booking
Online booking to minimize transaction costs.
No travel agent commissions.
Source: adapted from Graham, B. and T. Vowles (2006) “Carriers within carriers: a strategic response to low-cost airline competition”, Transport Reviews, Vol. 26, pp

24. 5. Air Transport Flows Massive:
1.4 billion passengers traveled by air transport (2000); 23% of the global population.
2.8 billion departures and arrivals supported by airports.
900,000 people were airborne on scheduled flights somewhere in the world at any one time.
Air traffic is globally highly imbalanced:
Distribution of the population.
Unequal levels of development.
Concentration of traffic in a limited number of hubs.

25. Major Air Traffic Flows Between Regions, 2000 (% of IATA Scheduled Passengers)
North America
3.9
Europe
1.7
23.2
35.5
1.7
1.9
15.9
1.8
1.3
1.5
Central America
Asia
Middle East
1.3
1.1
1.7
South America
Africa
Southwest Pacific
Source: IATA, World Air Transport Statistics
3.2
2.6
80% of the global population lives in the Northern Hemisphere.
North America and Europe accounted for 70.4% of all passenger movements in 2000.

26. C – Intermodal Transportation
1. Intermodalism
2. Containerization
3. Advantages and Challenges to Containerization

27. Intermodalism: From Fragmentation to Coordination
Factor
Cause
Consequence
Technology
Containerization & IT
Modal and intermodal innovations; Tracking shipments and managing fleets
Capital investments
Returns on investments
Highs costs and long amortization; Improve utilization to lessen capital costs
Alliances and M & A
Deregulation
Easier contractual agreements; joint ownership
Commodity chains
Globalization
Coordination of transportation and production (integrated demand)
Networks
Consolidation and interconnection
Economies of scale, efficiency and control.

28. Intermodal Transport Chain
Composition
‘Last mile’
Interchange
Transfer
‘First mile’
Local / Regional Distribution
Decomposition
National / International Distribution
Transport Terminal

29. Multimodal and Intermodal Transportation
Multimodal Point-to-Point Network
Intermodal Integrated Network C C A A B B
Transshipment
Rail
Road D D
Transshipment F F E E

30. Intermodal Transportation Cost Function
Local / Regional Distribution Cost
Decomposition
C(dc)
National / International Distribution Cost
Connection
C(cn)
Costs
C(I)
Interchange
C(cn)
Connection
Composition
C(cp)
Origin
Transshipment
Destination

31. Cumulative Cost and Time of Moving a 40 Foot Container between the American East Coast and Western Europe
Source: Cost of Operations and Time for Shipping a 40’ Container; in APEC’s Congestion Points Study, Phase III, Best Practices Manual and Technical Report, Volume 2 Sea Transport, Feb. 1997, p. 105.

32. 2. Containerization Container
Load unit that can be used by several transport modes.
Usable by maritime, railway and road modes.
Rectangular shape that can easily be handled.
Reference size is the Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU).
Two major reference sizes:
The 40 footer; most common (57%). Comes also in a “high-cube” configuration (33%). Mainly used for retail goods.
The 20 footer (27%). Mainly used for commodities.
The “reefer” (6%). Used to transport temperature-sensitive goods.
Life expectancy of years.

33. Carrying Capacity of Containers (in cubic feet)
Source: adapted from Robert C. Leachman (2005) Port and Modal Elasticity Study, Dept. of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of California at Berkeley.

34. Number of Units and Weight of Standard Consumption Goods that Can be Carried by a 20 Foot Container
Source: adapted from T. Toikka (2006) “The Real Price for Container Transportation between Asia and Europe”, Lappeenranta University of Technology,
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management.

35. Stacked 40-Foot Containers, Port of Yantian, China

36. World Container Traffic, 1980-2008
Source: Drewry Shipping Consultants.

37. Advantages of Containerization
Factor
Advantage
Standard transport product
Can be manipulated anywhere in the world (ISO standard).
Specialized ships, trucks and wagons.
Flexibility of usage
Raw materials (coal, wheat), manufactured goods, cars, frozen products.
Liquids (oil and chemical products) and “reefers” (50% of all refrigerated cargo).
Reuse of discarded containers.
Management
Unique identification number and a size type code.
Transport management not in terms of loads, but in terms of unit.
Costs
Low transport costs; 20 times less than bulk transport.
Speed
Transshipment operations are minimal and rapid.
Port turnaround times reduced from 3 weeks to about 24 hours.
Containerships are faster than regular freighter ships.
Warehousing
Its own warehouse; Simpler and less expensive packaging.
Stacking capacity on ships, trains (doublestacking) and on the ground.
Security
Contents of the container is unknown to shippers.
Can only be opened at the origin, at customs and at the destination.
Reduced spoilage and losses (theft).

38. 20-Foot Container on Truck
Source: Photo courtesy of Gary and Matt Hannes. The Intermodal Container Web Page.

39. 40-Foot Containers Doublestacked on a Rail Car
Source: Photo courtesy of Gary and Matt Hannes. The Intermodal Container Web Page.

40. 20-Foot Tank Containers
Source: Photo courtesy of Gary and Matt Hannes. The Intermodal Container Web Page.

41. 40’ Reefer

42. The Ultimate “Kegger”

43. Reuse of a Discarded Container (South Africa)

44. Challenges of Containerization
Factor
Challenge
Site constraints
Large consumption of terminal space; move to urban periphery.
Draft issues with larger containerships.
Infrastructure costs
Container handling infrastructures (giant cranes, warehousing facilities, inland road, rail access), are important investments.
Stacking
Complexity of arrangement of containers, both on the ground and on modes (containerships and double-stack trains).
Loaded to avoid any restacking.
Management logistics
Requires management and tracking of every container.
Recording, (re)positioning and ordering of containers.
Empty movements
Many containers are moved empty (20% of all flows).
Either full or empty, a container takes the same amount of space.
Divergence between production and consumption; repositioning.
Illicit trade
Common instrument used in the illicit trade of drug and weapons, as well as for illegal immigration.
Worries about the usage of containers for terrorism.