Advanced Transport And Spatial Systems Models

The usual view in a mixed economy is that some goods and services are produced privately and some, such as transportation, are produced publicly. Private institutions, such as households and entrepreneurs, produce and con sume goods and services in pursuing their parochial interests, while the pub lic sector attempts to broaden public interests. More precisely, the public sector constructs new transportation systems, improves their capaci ties, and regulates services and prices; and the private sector chooses locations of pro duction, modes of transportation, and routes of shipmellt. At the sallie' Lillte'. all forms of transportation influence our lives and cause us concern for Oll r environment, health, and safety. Thus, transportation is intimately woven into the daily life of individuals and organizations in our society. Because of its constant presence, transportation is easy to overlook until it fails in some way. Few would contend that private firms could or should construct an effi cient transportation system in a mixed economic system. Because the entire transportation system must be integrated and coordinated, firms with the power to construct such a system would have considerable monopoly control.

The usual view in a mixed economy is that some goods and services are produced privately and some, such as transportation, are produced publicly. Private institutions, such as households and entrepreneurs, produce and con sume goods and services in pursuing their parochial interests, while the pub lic sector attempts to broaden public interests. More precisely, the public sector constructs new transportation systems, improves their capaci ties, and regulates services and prices; and the private sector chooses locations of pro duction, modes of transportation, and routes of shipmellt. At the sallie' Lillte'. all forms of transportation influence our lives and cause us concern for Oll r environment, health, and safety. Thus, transportation is intimately woven into the daily life of individuals and organizations in our society. Because of its constant presence, transportation is easy to overlook until it fails in some way. Few would contend that private firms could or should construct an effi cient transportation system in a mixed economic system. Because the entire transportation system must be integrated and coordinated, firms with the power to construct such a system would have considerable monopoly control.

This book provides a systematic analysis, modeling and evaluation of the performance of advanced transport systems. It offers an innovative approach by presenting a multidimensional examination of the performance of advanced transport systems and transport modes, useful for both theoretical and practical purposes. Advanced transport systems for the twenty-first century are characterized by the superiority of one or several of their infrastructural, technical/technological, operational, economic, environmental, social and policy performances as compared to their conventional counterparts. The advanced transport systems considered include: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) systems in urban area(s), electric and fuel cell passenger cars, high speed tilting trains, High Speed Rail (HSR), Trans Rapid Maglev (TRM), Evacuated Tube Transport system (ETT), advanced commercial subsonic and Supersonic Transport Aircraft (STA), conventionally- and Liquid Hydrogen (LH2)-fuelled commercial air transportation, advanced Air Traffic Control (ATC) technologies and procedures for increasing the airport runway capacity, Underground Freight Transport (UFT) systems in urban area(s), Long Intermodal Freight Train(s) (LIFTs), road mega trucks, large advanced container ships and freight/cargo aircraft and advanced freight/goods collection distribution networks. This book is intended for postgraduates, researchers, professionals and policy makers working in the transport industry.

The subject of this volume is the dynamic interactions between transport and the physical, economic, and human geographies it weaves through. The reader is introduced to the new spatial system technologies that are bringing geography and transport management and analysis together.

​This volume is a collection of fresh and novel contributions to regional science. They commemorate the scientific inheritance of the founding father of regional science, the late Walter Isard. All papers are written by well-known scholars in the field and serve to highlight the great importance of regional science theory and methodology for a better understanding of current spatial and environmental problems throughout our planet. The book showcases a multidisciplinary panorama of modern regional science research and presents new insights by applying regional science approaches.

The connections between economics, planning, and the environment are receiv ing increased attention among scholars and policy makers in many countries. The common denominator among these three variables is the earth's life support sys tems, the ecosystems on which the world depends. When we describe our physi cal surroundings as a collection of possible uses, we are establishing linkages between economics, planning, and the environment. Because possible alternative uses compete with each other, and conflicts arise over scarce land resources, the varying environmental impacts of alternative uses are major concerns for the cur rent as well as the next generation. How to achieve sustainable development is the pressing question for today's environmental professionals. Environmental planners and engineers help us study the implications of our choices, and new technologies and techniques that improve the practice of environmental planning should enhance our ability to protect our future. The depletion of the earth's natural resources and loss of biodiversity, the deg radation of air, land, and water quality, the accumulation of greenhouse gases leading to changes in our climate, and the depletion of the ozone layer comprise only a partial list of environmental issues that concern our policy makers. To sup port their decisions, environmental planning must be a multidimensional and multidisciplinary activity that incorporates social, economic, political, geograph ical, and technical factors. Solutions for problems in these areas frequently re quire not only numerical analyses but also heuristic analyses, which in turn depend on the intuitive judgements of planners and engineers.

Regional science, as an integrating discipline for many scientific analyses concerning the element of space, has a remarkable record of achievements in both breadth and depth. The great many scientific journals in this field and the large number of regional science books mirror the appeal of this discipline, in both the developed and the developing world. The scientific organization in this area, the Regional Science Association International, is organizing a world conference every four years. The 1989 Regional Science World Conference was held in an interesting setting, viz. kibbutz Ramat Rachel on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The organization of this meeting was undertaken by the Israeli Section of the Regional Science Association, under the supervision of Professor Rafi Bar-EI (Development Study Center, Rehovoth). The meeting turned out to be a great success and provided an extremely interesting cross-section of new developments in the area of regional science. It was decided afterward to publish a set of representative papers from this meeting in one volume. The present book brings together these papers, which were duly selected after a careful screening and refereeing process. The editors wish to thank all referees for their willingness to assist them in the task of producing this volume. Many thanks also go to Rita Hittema for her skillful copy-editing and word processing of the manuscript.

This volume is the result of an international collaboration, which started with a conference at Smadalaro Gfrrd in Sweden. The workshop was supported by the National Science Foundation of the USA (INT-9215114) and by the Swedish National Road Administration, the Swedish Council for Building Research, the Swedish Transport and Communications Research Board and the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research. This support is gratefully acknow ledged. The collaboration started as a bilateral u.S.-Swedish endeavour but was soon widened to other scholars in Europe, Asia, Australia and South-America. Network Infrastructure and the Urban Environment is a policy area of growing importance. Sustainable cities and sustainable transport systems are necessary for attaining a sustainable development. The research and policy field, represented in this volume, comprises a number of challenging contrasts: - the contrast between infrastructure investments, mobility and environmental sustainability; - the contrast between policy contexts, modelling traditions and available decision support systems in various parts of the world; - the contrast between available best practice methods and the majority of models applied in planning; the contrast between static models of cross-sectionary equilibria and dynamic models of disequilibrium adjustments; and the contrast between state-of-the-art operationalland-use/transport models and new demands for land-use/transportlenvironment models due to changing policy contexts. Bridging some of these gaps constitutes important research tasks, that are discussed in the twenty-two chapters of this book. A number of emerging research directions are identified in the introduction and summary chapter.