CHAPTER
1
INTRODUCTION
Setting the Scene
The transport sector consists of different transport modesâland, sea or airâeach serving the need for mobility of people and transport of goods/freight shipments. For a long time, transport systems subsisted on the basis of demand and supply, i.e. capacity, which has been under comprehensive consideration by the different actors/stakeholders involved. On the demand side were the users of transport services, like passengers and goods/freight shippers and receivers; on the supply/capacity side were the providers of transport infrastructure and services. In addition, the transport planners and policy makers at different institutional levelsâlocal, regional, national and internationalâhave been involved with planning and implementing solutions on development of transport systems and their particular components, besides the regulation of their operations, both internally and externally. In general, the actors/stakeholders have had specific, sometimes conflicting, interests and expectations, from the particular transport system. The users of transport services usually expect to receive safe, efficient, quick and effective door-to-door services at reasonable prices. The providers of transport infrastructure and services try to satisfy the expectations of users under conditions characterized by a growing transport demand on the one side and voicing operational, economic, environmental and social constraints on the other. The latter aim at mitigating the impact of overall transport-related activities on the society and environment.
Transport planners are engaged in planning adequate transport capacity in the wider social, economic and environmental context. Transport policy makers create institutional/regulative conditions for maintaining the transport capacity as per the demand by setting up internal and external market, social and environmental framework for implementation and operation of particular transport systems and their components according to the regulations based on various constraints.
The main objectives of both transport policy makers and the transport sector itself are âgreeningâ or developing more sustainable transport systems, which contribute to social welfare while reducing their impact on the society and environment in both absolute and relative terms in order to keep space with the growing demand. Fulfilment of such an objective influences changes in dealing with transport systems and their particular problems by all actors/stakeholders involved directly and/or indirectly. This is mainly carried out by widening the context and content, i.e. the increasing complexity of addressing these systems and related problems.
This book aims to illustrate some aspects of the transport system as seen from the analyzing, modelling, planning and evaluation perspective. Thus, widening the context and content is addressed through a multi-dimensional examination of the performances of transport systems, i.e. by considering them simultaneously. These performances are classified as infrastructural, technical/technological, operational, economic, environmental and social. The increasing complexity is addressed by considering the dependability of particular performances more explicitly or implicitly. Consequently, the modelling, planning and evaluation of transport system performances follow the above-mentioned features of both the context and content. In addition, despite being written from the research and planning perspective, this book can prove useful to actors/stakeholders who deal directly or indirectly with different problems in the transport sector. Therefore, in addition to this introductory chapter, the book consists of seven other chapters which cover aspects like modelling, planning and evaluating transport systems.
Chapter 2 describes the general characteristics of transport systems illustrated by analyzing and modelling of performances of the HSR (High Speed Rail) system.
Chapter 3 deals with modelling the operational economic, environmental and social performances of transport systems illustrated under three headsâutilization of the runway system capacity at a large hub airport; the full (internal and external) costs of intermodal rail/road and road freight transport networks competing with each other under given conditions and the effects/impacts in terms of savings of externalities of rail/road substitution in the given freight transport corridor(s).
Chapter 4 deals with modelling the effects and impacts of new technologies and related innovative procedures on the performances of transport systems by elaborating two cases: the performances of supply chain(s) operated by mega vehicles and the capacity of the system of two closely-spaced parallel airport runways where the aircraft landings and taking-offs are supported by new ATC/ATM (Air Traffic Control/Air Traffic Management) technologies and related innovative procedures.
Chapter 5 presents modelling of the resilience of transport systems illustrated by two cases: a logistics networks operating under regular and irregular (disturbing) conditions and an air transport network affected by a large-scale disruptive event.
Chapter 6, without referring to any specific cases, describes the main characteristics of planning the transport systems, such as the procedure of long-term planning of transport infrastructure and rolling stock, the prospective effects and impacts of such planning and the main components of the planning process of both transport infrastructure and service network(s).
Chapter 7 deals with evaluation of the transport system alternatives by using different MCDM (Multi-Criteria Decision Making) methods. Three cases are elaborated: (i) selection of the new hub airport for an airline, (ii) location of the new runway at an airport of a given airport system, and (iii) evaluation of the feasibility of alternative rail freight transport corridors.
The last chapter summarizes the conclusions and lessons learnt.
Despite the chapters covering diverse transport modes and their systems and therefore appearing rather wide and heterogeneous in terms of context and specific topics dealt with, each is actually very coherent regarding the activity carried outâmodelling, planning and/or evaluation. In addition, each chapter is organized into the following sections: an introduction, presentation, elucidation, conclusion and references. Each section of the chapters except the concluding one is organized into sub-sections dealing with the particular cases as follows: background, description of the system and problem, the basic structure of the proposed methodologyâsome related research, objectives and assumptions, structure of the methodology/models and their application to either real-life or hypothetical case(s) and an interim summary. As such, some sections and sub-sections look similar to the modified papers published in transport-related scientific and professional journals. This is simply because most of the presented material originates from the authorâs research carried out over the past decade-and-a-half and which has been partially published in the above-mentioned journals.
