Globalization And Transport

This book looks in detail at how globalisation has affected activity levels in maritime shipping, aviation, and road and rail freight, and assesses the impact that changes in activity levels have had on the environment.

The field of globalization and transport has witnessed a surge in interest over the past two decades with scholars questioning the reasoning behind its growth, its impact on the environment and trade as well as its effect on the development of cities and supply chain logistics. The editors have selected seminal works from leading academics to address these issues and outline the diverse and controversial nature of this subject. Along with an original introduction, this timely volume will be of immense value to researchers, students and practitioners in the field of globalization and transport.

This book gives an account of how the U.S. freight transportation system has been impacted and “globalized,” since the 1950s, by the presence of the shipping container. A globally standardized object, the container carries cargo moving in international trade, and it utilizes and fits within the existing transportation infrastructures of shipping, trucking and railroads. In this way it binds them together into a nearly seamless worldwide logistics network. This process occurs not only in ocean shipping and at ports, but also deep within national territories. In its dependence on existing infrastructural systems, though, the network of container movement as it pervades domestic space is shaped by the history and geography of the nation-state. This global network is not invariably imposed in a top-down manner—to a large degree, it is cobbled together out of national, regional and local systems. Heins describes this in the American context, examining the freight transportation infrastructures of railroads, trucking and inland waterways, and also the terminals where containers are transferred between train and truck. The book provides a detailed historical narrative, and is also theoretically informed by the contemporary literature on infrastructure and globalization.

The editors as well as the authors of these essays should be commended for bringing together and discussing within this volume many of the important issues facing globalized freight movements. Robert Martin, The Professional Geographer . . . Leinbach and Capineri have produced an interesting and useful addition to the literature on this massive subject. . . Anthony Beresfore, International Journal of Maritime History Globalization is a fashionable issue. But solid research on the conditions and implications for freight transport is badly missing. This volume contains a unique set of high-quality contributions on freight transport in the age of globalization. It offers a wealth of original insights to both the research and policy-making community. Peter Nijkamp, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands The worldwide movement of freight has emerged as one of the most critical and dynamic aspects of the transport sector. The contributors to this study examine the current state of global freight transport, with an emphasis on Europe and North America and their extra-regional linkages. These original contributions synthesize existing knowledge, highlight new developments, problems and possible solutions, and underscore the need for further research. The book s starting point is the fact that freight transport is the main element supporting global supply and commodity chains, from the transformation of raw materials to market distribution and after-market services. However, as the authors point out, the rising costs associated with security and various other constraints, as well as the complexity of getting goods delivered, is adding to profit pressures faced by manufacturers around the globe. Despite the application of technology and increasingly efficient solutions to the movement of freight, constraint points and conditions obstructing smooth operations and sustainability have developed. These difficulties affect both the environment and economic growth. Examining the issues from four critical perspectives intermodality, e-commerce and technology, logistics, and sustainability Globalized Freight Transport captures the concern for the viability of freight systems and the ways they are impacting the global economy. This cutting-edge study will be of great interest to students and scholars of transportation, as well as to public sector policymakers and private sector managers.

Opportunities for individuals and businesses to benefit from globalisation are increased by efficient, cost-effective transport networks. A competitive, responsive, well-organised transport sector facilitates trade and creating the conditions for this poses policy challenges that must be tackled.

This book is concerned with the role played by the sea transport industries in the development of global markets. It claims that the sea transport industry in fundamentally intrinsic to the political and economic interactions between nations. It seeks to demonstrate that the elements of shipping, internationalisation, and globalisation are intertwined. The purpose of this journal is to trace the development and examine the consequences of globalisation as it relates to maritime history. The four main issues under consideration are:- information networks and cooperation in transoceanic shipping; the expansion of markets; technological change; and the adaptability of entrepreneurs, institutions, and nation states to changing business environments. Geographically, the focus of the contributing essays splits between Europe and Japan.

Globalization of the economy, fragmentation of the production process, increasing externalization of TNCs activities through their global value chains and the widespread adoption of Just-in-Time have increased the flows of raw materials, intermediate goods and finished products, with a direct effect on the transport and logistics industry. This industry, indeed, plays a key role in connecting the different import and export markets and the vertically disaggregated components of production system, which are widespread in the world. The existing literature on transport and logistics is mainly focused on engineering research, transportation economics and management studies, disregarding the view of regional economics, which relates with the impact of economics on space, and therefore, on the impact of internationalisation on a specific industry – transport and logistics and its effects on space. The present book aims to fill the gap in the existing literature by presenting the state of the art of the impact of globalisation and internationalisation of the economy on this industry and focusing on the case of Italy.