Freight Transportation Issues

Urban Freight Transportation Systems offers new insights into the complexities of today's urban freight transport system. It provides a much needed multidisciplinary perspective from researchers in not only transportation, but also engineering, business management, planning and the law. The book examines numerous critical issues, such as strategies for delivery, logistics and freight transport spatial patterns, urban policy assessment, innovative transportation technologies, urban hubs, and the role factories play in the urban freight transport system. The book offers a novel conceptual approach for addressing the problems of production, logistics and traffic in an urban context. As most of the world's population now live in cities, thus significantly increasing commercial traffic, there are numerous challenges for efficiently and sustainably delivering goods into cities. This book provides solutions and tactics to those challenges. Includes interdisciplinary contributors from around the globe Provides never-before-published original research to help users stay current and develop a deeper understanding of the field Presents the methods and results of research that is useful for both academics and practitioners

"This document synthesizes the discussions of a one-day workshop, "Increasing the Capacity of Freight Transport: Canadian and American Perspectives on the Challenges Ahead," that was held in Santa Monica, California, on February 16, 2006"--Pref.

Efficient movement of freight within the United States and across its borders is a critical enabler of future U.S. economic growth. The authors provide an overview of the freight-transportation system and the problems it faces, concluding with a discussion of key system-modernization issues, including increasing capacity, making the system less vulnerable to disruption, addressing environmental concerns, and building support for funding.

Heightened awareness of North America's vulnerability to terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 has precipitated a crisis for transport suppliers and cargo owners, one that jeopardizes economic prosperity. Mary Brooks examines one industry sector of the North American economic relationship - transportation services - from the perspectives of transport supplier, cargo owner and policymaker. Ensuring security in international transportation without compromising operational effectiveness is a delicate balancing act. There is concern that economic benefits from NAFTA and the Canada-US Trade Agreement may have been diminished by the current security focus of American officials. The author addresses these concerns, beginning with a history of NAFTA and subsequent continental economic integration. Succeeding chapters provide an economic and regulatory assessment of the North American transport network, and examine key issues for both cargo interests and surface transport suppliers. The issues of perimeter security and growing regionalization are also explored. The author closes with a discussion of North America's transportation future under the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The unique insights of North American Freight Transportation will be of interest to policymakers, those in the transport sector, as well as researchers and practitioners in political science and trade economics.

Freight Transport and the Modern Economy adapts a well-known textbook by Michel Savy, revising, extending and updating it for British, European and international readers. It deals not only with the technical aspects of transport, logistics and supply chain management, but also the interactions between transport professionals and the public authorities in the modern social, political, economic and environmental context. The transport of freight is presented as a system, mixing empirics and theory, showing how transport itself functions and also its strong influence on the modern economy, with a growing volume of production, turnover and employment. The nature of freight transport, an industrial process widely marketed as a service, is analysed in depth, explaining the main characteristics of the transport operation, its market and the regulatory context. The main actors, the professional actors (carriers, shippers and other agents) and the public authorities are introduced, and their behaviour and interactions are clarified. This comprehensive approach allows the reader to go further and consider in particular the approaches and practices of transport by carriers, customers, logistics managers, political decision makers and citizens, to tackle long range issues such as the ‘decoupling’ of production and transport recommended by some institutions and experts, and to explore the need for more infrastructure, or the capacity of the freight transport industry to reduce its contribution to pollution and climate change. This book treats freight transport as a whole system in its technical, economic, social, political and environmental context, in contrast to existing transport literature focused on individual aspects, such as transportation planning (usually for cars or passengers), logistics (essentially management issues), or individual transport modes. This book is comprehensive in its treatment of freight transport and in its use of multiple disciplinary perspectives.