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

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Citation
Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Dept. of Global Studies & Geography, Hofstra University.

3. A – Characteristics of Transportation Modes
1. Vehicles and Infrastructure
2. Modal Competition
3. Passengers and Freight

4. 1. Vehicles and Infrastructure
Transport modes:
Means to achieve mobility.
Each mode had a set of technical, operational and commercial characteristics.
Vehicles:
Mobile segment.
Supporting the mobility of passengers, freight and information.
Infrastructures:
Fixed segment.
Supporting movements of vehicles.
Three basic types:
Land (road, rail and pipelines).
Water (shipping).
Air.

5. Performance Comparison for Selected Freight Modes
Vehicle
Capacity
Truck Equivalency
1500 Tons
52,500 Bushels
453,600 Gallons
57.7
(865.4 for 15 barges in tow)
Barge
100 Tons 3,500 Bushels 30,240 Gallons
3.8
Hopper car
10,000 Tons 350,000 Bushels 3,024,000 Gallons
384.6
100 car train unit
26 Tons; 910 Bushels 7,865 Gallons
9,000 for a tanker truck 1
Semi-trailer truck
Note: modes are not to scale.
5,000 TEU
2,116
Post-panamax containership
9,330
300,000 tons
2 million barrels of oil
VLCC
124 tons 5 F

6. Modal Split in the EU, United States and Japan, 2005 (in % of ton-km)
Source: BTS, EU & MLIT.
Eurostat, Panorama of Transport
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

7. Competition and Complementarity
Transport Market
Geographical Market
Passengers / freight
International / domestic
Level of Service
Time / costs

8. Forms of Modal Competition
Mode
Infrastructure / Route
Market Area B B B B B 1 2 4 5 3 6 A A A A A

9. Distance, Modal Choice and Transport Costs
Road C3
Transport costs per unit
Rail
Maritime D1 D2
Distance

10. Four Travel Options between New York and Boston, 2004
Mode
Price (one way)
Time
LimoLiner (luxury bus)
$69
4 hours
Acela (Amtrak train)
$99
3 hours
Greyhound bus
$30
Air Shuttle
$128
1 hour (plus check in)
Source: K. Gordon (2004) “Boston to New York: Four Ways to Make the Trip”, New York Times, January 20.

11. Advantages and Disadvantages of Joint Operations
Capital costs
Maintenance costs
Same modes
Locations of demand rarely match.
Different frequency of demand.
Difference timing of service.
Traffic balances.
Tolerance for reliability.
Different operational speeds.
Different security screening measures.

12. B – A Diversity of Modes 1. Road Transportation 2. Rail Transportation
3. Pipelines
4. Maritime Transportation
5. Air Transportation

13. 1. Road Transportation Overview Small capital costs for vehicles:
Easy for new users to gain entry.
Highly competitive.
Innovations and new technologies can diffuse quickly through the industry.
High relative speed of vehicles:
Government-imposed speed limits.
Flexibility of route choice:
Once a network of roads is provided.
Door to door service for both passengers and freight.

14. 1. Road Transportation History
The first land roads were trails (hunting):
Seasonality.
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 governmental oversight 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.

15. Roman Road (Appian Way)

16. 1. Road Transportation Modern road networks Road engineering
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, were in operation by the early 20th century.
Road engineering
Construction of reliable and low cost hard surface roads.
Scottish engineer Macadam 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.

17. Macadam Road Construction, Maryland 1823
Source: United States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration, Painting by Carl Rakeman

18. 1. Road Transportation National highway systems
Lincoln Highway (1920s).
German autobahn (1932).
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.

19. German Autobahn, circa 1936
Source:

20. Length of the Interstate Highway System, 1959-2008 (in miles)
Includes Puerto Rico
Source: Federal Highway Administration.

21. The Interstate Highway System

22. World Automobile Production and Fleet, 1965-2007
Source: Worldwatch Institute, BTS.

23. Annual Vehicle-Miles Traveled in the United States and Year-over-Year Changes, 1971-2009
Source: US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration,

24. 1. Road Transportation Public sector
Main supplier of road transport infrastructures.
Impractical to use a similar pricing system than a commercial enterprise.
Most roads are not economically profitable:
Must be socially present as they are essential to service populations.
Only specific trunks have a 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.
The “free road curse”.

25. Costs and Revenues Linked with Road Transportation
Rights of way
Development costs (planning)
Construction and expropriation costs
Maintenance and administration costs
Losses in land taxes (urban environment)
External costs (accidents and pollution)
Registration
Gas (taxes)
Purchases of vehicles (taxes)
Tolls, parking, traffic violations and insurance fees

26. 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.
Significant changes brought by containerization:
Improved the flexibility of rail transportation.
Integration with road and maritime modes.

27. Geographical Settings of Rail Lines
Penetration Lines
Local / Regional Networks
Transcontinental Lines
Nation A
Nation B

28. 2. Rail Transportation Geographical setting Rail monopolies
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.

29. Ownership of Major North American Rail Lines, 2008

30. Rail Technical Issues Space consumption Small along lines.
Important at terminals.
Gradient and turns
4% for passengers (40 meters per kilometer).
1% for freight (10 meters per kilometer).
Vehicles
Very flexible in terms of vehicles and a wide variety of purposes.
Bulk, liquids, grain, containers, passengers, cattle, cars, coal.
Gauge
Standard gauge of meters for North America and for most Western Europe.

31. Major Gauges of the Global Rail Systems, 2008
Source: Wikipedia.

32. Percent of Rail Passenger Traffic to Total Rail Traffic, 2000
Source: The World Bank. Restructuring of China Railways: Implications for India? Louis S. Thompson, Railways Adviser, World Bank, New Delhi, India, March 1, 2002.

33. Rail Track Mileage and Number of Class I Rail Carriers, United States, 1830-2007
Source: BTS and Association of American Railroads.

34. Economic Rationale of Rail Transportation
Market Area
Longest service area for inland transport (average length of 1,300 km).
Service both the passengers and freight markets.
Intermodal integration favored market segmentation and specialization.
Capacity
A wagon can carry 50 to 100 tons of freight.
Economies of scale (unit trains and doublestacking).
Costs
High construction and maintenance costs.
High operating costs: labor (60%), locomotives (16%) and fuel & equipment (24%).
Shipping costs decrease with distance and load.
Transshipments and train assembly increase costs.
Benefits
Accelerated industrialization.
Support agricultural and energy supply systems.
Intermodal connecting with international trade.
Regulation
Conventionally highly dependent from government subsidies.
Governments financing, mainly for the sake of national economic imperatives.
From regulation to deregulation.
Private ownership and operations.

35. 2. Rail Transportation High speed train networks
Require special lines, but can also use 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.
Able to compete effectively with air transportation for average distances.

36. Travel Times before and after the Introduction of a High Speed Train Service (hours)
Source: International Union of Railways,

37. 4. Maritime Transport Issues Using buoyancy to transport.
Lowest use of energy per unit carried.
Speed limitations.
Require ports.
International trade and maritime transportation:
Interrelated.
90% in terms of volume (in ton-km)
71% in terms of value.
For every $1,000 of exports, there is one ton of freight being shipped by maritime transportation.

38. International Seaborne Trade and Exports of Goods, 1955-2008
Source: WTO and United Nations, Review of Maritime Transport. Data in current USD.

39. Domains of Maritime Circulation
Strategic by its control.
Commercial by its usage.

40. Main Maritime Shipping Routes
Obligatory points of passage, which are strategic places.
Physical constraints (coasts, winds, marine currents, depth, reefs, ice).
Political borders.

41. Maritime Enclaves and Accessibility
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.
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.

42. Types of Vessels Passenger ferries
Carried across relatively short bodies of water in a shuttle-type service.
Tend to be small and fast vessels, except for high volume markets (e.g. English Channel).
Many are RORO vessels.
Cruise ships
Trips of various durations, usually over several days.
Several amenities (restaurants, theaters, swimming pools, casinos) .
Usually very large capacity ships.
Before air transportation, serviced by liner passenger ships, dominantly over the North Atlantic.
RORO vessels
Roll on – Roll off
Allow cars, trucks and trains to be loaded directly on board.
The largest are the car carriers that transport vehicles from assembly plants to main markets.

43. English Channel Ferry Ship Entering the Port of Le Havre, France
Photo: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, 2003.

44. Cruise Ship

45. RO-RO Cargo Ship
Photo: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, 2003

46. Types of Vessels Bulk cargo
Freight, both dry or liquid, that is not packaged.
Minerals (oil, coal, iron ore) and grains.
Use of specialized ships such as oil tankers.
Specialized transshipment and storage facilities.
Single origin, destination and client.
Prone to economies of scale.
Break-bulk cargo
Cargo packaged in some way (bags, boxes or drums).
Numerous origins, destinations and clients.
Before containerization, economies of scale were difficult to achieve.
Dominance of the containership.

47. World Tonnage by Cargo Vessel Type, 1970-2009 (in millions dwt)
Source: UNCTAD, Review of Maritime Transport.

48. Ton-miles Shipped by Maritime Transportation, 1970-2007 (in billions)
Source: UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport, various years.

49. World’s Largest Dry-Bulk Carrier, the Berge Stalh
Source: Photo courtesy of Maik Ebel, Ship Photos,

50. Liquid Natural Gas Carrier (bulk)

51. Reefer Ship
The Self-Sustaining Cellular Reefer Vessel ( Banana Ship ) Dole Chile and her sister vessel, the Dole Columbia, marked a new departure in reefer ship technology. Prior to their delivery, AP Moller’s large containerships were the world’s largest reefer ships with the ability to carry up to 700 refrigerated TEU. The two Dole self-sustaining fully cellular vessels combine a hatchcoverless configuration, with a record-breaking concentration of perishable cargo carrying capacity. Dole Chile has a capacity of 1,000 40ft containers or 2,000 TEUs. This equates to approximately 2m cbf, making the Dole sisters the largest cold storage vessels in the world. Dole Chile was built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) in Kiel for Dole Fresh Fruit International, and delivered in The vessel is deployed primarily in transporting bananas from Costa Rica to the east coast of the USA.

52. The Evelyn Maersk (Containership: break-bulk)
Photo: Dr. Theo Notteboom (Port of Algeciras, Spain).

53. Six Generations of Containerships
Length
Draft
TEU
135 m
First ( )
Converted Cargo Vessel
< 9 m
< 30 ft
500
Converted Tanker
200 m
800
Second ( )
10 m
33 ft
1,000 –
2,500
Cellular Containership
215 m
250 m
3,000
Third ( )
Panamax Class
11-12 m
36-40 ft
290 m
4,000
Post Panamax
275 –
305 m
Fourth ( )
11-13 m
36-43 ft
4,000 –
5,000
Post Panamax Plus
Fifth ( )
13-14 m
43-46 ft
335 m
5,000 –
8,000
New Panamax
Sixth (2006-)
15.5 m
50 ft
11,000 –
14,500
397 m

54. The Largest Available Containership, 1970-2008 (in TEUs)
E “Emma” Class (12,500 TEU)
S “Sovereign” Class (8,000 TEU)
R “Regina” Class (6,000 TEU)
L “Lica” Class (3,400 TEU)
E “Emma” Class (2006)
S “Sovereign” Class (1997)
R “Regina” Class (1996)
L “Lica” Class (1981)

55. 4. Maritime Transport Pendulum services
Prior to containerization, loading or unloading a ship was a very expensive and time consuming task.
Cargo ships typically spent more time docked than at sea.
Set of sequential port calls along a maritime range.
Transoceanic service from ports in another range and structured as a continuous loop.
Servicing a market by balancing the number of port calls and the frequency of services.

56. Types of Maritime Routes
Port-to-Port
Pendulum
Round-the-World
Point to point service.
Return empty.
Common for bulk freight.
Shipping service moving back and forth between two maritime ranges (seaboards).
Balancing the number of port calls and the frequency of services.
Servicing continuously a sequence of ports.
Sequence enables a round trip around the world.
Limited amount of ports per continent are serviced.
Involve a series of transshipment hubs.

57. Three Major Pendulum Routes Serviced by OOCL, 2006

58. AMAX Round-the-World Route
Halifax
Genoa
New York
Barcelona
Lianyungang
Shanghai
Ningbo
Xiamen
Yantian
Chiwan
Naples
Los Angeles
Valencia
Norfolk
Savannah
Haifa
Miami
Damietta
Port Kelang
Source: China Shipping
Rotation: 62 day
Lianyungang ►5 days► Port Kelang ►12 days ► Damietta ►9 days ► Valencia ►8 days ► New York ►17 days ► Los Angeles ►11 days ►Lianyungang

59. Technical Innovations in Maritime Transport
Size
Each time the size of a ship is doubled, its capacity is cubed.
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; about 575 km per day.
Recent ships can travel between 25 to 30 knots (45 to 55 km per hour).
Reaching higher maritime speeds remains a costly challenge.
Specialization of ships
General cargo ships, tankers, grain carriers, barges, mineral carriers, bulk carriers, methane carriers and container ships.
Ship design
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.

60. 4. Maritime Transport Flags of convenience
46% of the ships and about 67% of the global tonnage (2007).
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.

61. Tonnage by Country of Registry, 2006
Source: DOT-Marad,

62. Emerging Global Maritime Freight Transport System