1. Topic 3 – Transportation Modes
A Diversity of Modes
Intermodal Transportation
Passengers or Freight?

2. 5. Air Transport Context Air routes are practically unlimited:
North Atlantic.
Inside North America and Europe.
Over the North Pacific.
Inside Asia.
Multidimensional constraints:
Site (a commercial plane needs about 3,300 meters of track for landing and take off).
Climate, fog and aerial currents.
Air activities are linked to the tertiary and quaternary sectors:
Finance and tourism that require movements of people.
Accommodating growing quantities of high value freight.

3. 5. Air Transport Air Space Air space use
Segment of the atmosphere that is under the jurisdiction of a nation or under an international agreement for its use.
Two major components:
Land-based; takeoffs and landings.
Air-based; composed of air corridors.
Air corridors can superimpose themselves to altitudes up to 22,500 meters.
Limited to the use of predetermined corridors.
Air space use
Air space exclusively belongs to the country under it.
Access to the land and air-based components is dependent on agreements between nations and airline companies.
Air freedom rights.

4. Air Freedom Rights First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Eight
Home
Country B
Country A
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Eight
Ninth

5. Development of air transportation
Technical improvements:
Jet engine considerably reduced distances, namely because of greater speeds and improved ranges.
Almost every part of the world can be serviced in less than 24 hours.
Rising affluence:
Linked with income and economic output growth.
Disposable income available for leisure.
International tourism and air transportation are mutually interdependent.
Globalization:
Trade networks established by multinational corporations.
About 40% of the value of global manufactured exports.
About 50% of the value of American overseas - non-NAFTA - exports.

6. Main Commercial Passenger Aircraft, 1935-2006
Year of First Commercial Service
Speed (km/hr)
Maximum Range at Full Payload (km)
Seating Capacity
Douglas DC-3
1935
346
563 30
Douglas DC-7
1953
555
5,810 52
Boeing
1958
897
6,820
110
Boeing
1963
917
5,000 94
Boeing
1970
907
9,045
385
McDonnell Douglas DC-10
1971
908
7,415
260
Airbus A300
1974
847
3,420
269
Boeing
1982
954
5,855
216
Boeing
1989
939
13,444
416
Boeing ER
1995
905
13,420
305
Airbus A
2003
886
15,800
313
Airbus A380
2006
930
14,800
Source: adapted from T.R. Leinbach and J.T. Bowen (2004) Airspaces: Air Transport, Technology and Society, in D.B. Brunn, S.L. Cutter and J.W. Harrington (eds) Geography and Technology, Dordretch, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

7. Early Intercontinental Air Routes, 1930s
Eyeries
London
Amsterdam
Paris
Botwood
Toulouse
Brindisi
Athens
Dayr az Zawr
Lisbon
Marseilles
Baghdad
New York
Azores
Basra
Alicante
Tangier
Alexandria
Jask
Gwadar
Karachi
Jodhpur
Allhahabad
Gaza
Agadir
Casablanca
Cairo
Calcutta
Akyab
Kuwait
Rangoon
Wadi Halfa
Sharjah
Bangkok
Khartoum
Dakar
Alur Setar
Juba
Singapore
Nairobi
Medan
Waingapu
Mbeya
Darwin
Natal
Palembang
Jakarta
Harare
Surabaya
Kupang
Johannesburg
Katherine
Brisbane
Source: adapted from B. J. Graham (1995) Geography and Air Transport, New York: Wiley. p. 13
Mount Isa
Santiago
Rio de Janeiro
Longreach
Cape Town
Charleville
Imperial Airways African Route (c1933)
Sydney
Buenos Aires
Imperial Airways/Quantas Australian Route (c1934)
Aeropostale (1930)
KLM Amsterdam – Jakarta (1935)
Punta Arenas
Pan American Transatlantic Route (1939)

8. Flight Times by Piston and Jet Engines from Chicago
Piston Engine
10 hours
15 hours
20 hours
24 hours
40 hours
30 hours
Jet Engine
Source: Adapted from Taaffe, E.J., H.L. Gauthier and M.E. O’Kelly (1996), p. 131.
20 hours
15 hours
10 hours
24 hours

9. Average Airfare (roundtrip) between New York and London, 1946-2004
Source: Bowen, J. (2004) “World-Shapers: The Geographical Implications of Several Influential Jet Aircraft”, paper presented at the 2004 Conference of the American Association of Geographers.

10. Range from New York of Different Modern Commercial Jet Planes
A-320 (3,700 km)
B (7,400 km)
B (11,400 km)

11. World Air Travel and World Air Freight Carried, 1950-2002
Source: Air Transport Association.

12. 5. Air Transport Airline companies Strategic alliances
Highly capital intensive segment of transport services.
Labor intensive, with limited room to lessen those labor requirements.
Around 900 airlines operating 11,600 commercial aircrafts.
Average number of 200 seats per plane.
Dominant share of the traffic is assumed by large passengers and freight carriers.
Strategic alliances
Joint booking systems, exchange of shares, and a reorganization of their services in order to minimize redundancy.
Increased market dominance but also increased competition between major markets.

13. World’s 10 Largest Passengers Airlines, 2000 (in 1,000 passengers)
Source: IATA, World Air Transport Statistics

14. World’s 10 Largest Freight Airlines, 2000 (in 1,000 tons)
Source: IATA, World Air Transport Statistics

15. Market Share of World Airline Traffic, 2003
Oneworld
American Airlines, British Airways, Aer Lingus, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, LanChile, Quantas
Star
United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana, Austrian, bmi british midland, LOT Polish Airlines, Mexicana, SAS, Singapore, Spanair, Thai Airways, Varig, US Airways, TAM
SkyTeam
Air France, Delta Airlines, Aeromexico, Alitalia, CSA Czech Airlines, Korean Air, Northwest, Continental, KLM
Source: The Economist, October 4th 2003.

16. 5. Air Transport
Flows
1.4 billion passengers traveled by air transport (2000).
2.8 billion departures and arrivals supported by airports.
Equivalent of 23% of the global population.
30 million tons of freight were transported.
Air traffic is globally highly imbalanced:
Distribution of the population.
Unequal levels of development.
Concentration of traffic in a limited number of hubs.
80% of the global population lives in the Northern Hemisphere:
Air traffic is much denser north of the equator.
North America and Europe accounted for 70.4% of all passenger movements in 2000.

17. Major Air Traffic Flows Between Regions, 2000 (% of IATA Scheduled Passengers)
North America
3.9
Europe
1.7
23.2
35.5
1.7
1.9
15.9
1.8
1.3
1.5
Central America
Asia
Middle East
1.3
1.1
1.7
South America
Africa
Southwest Pacific
Source: IATA, World Air Transport Statistics
3.2
2.6

18. Integrated transportation systems
6. Modal Competition
Integrated transportation systems
Requires maximum flexibility.
Modal competition exists at various degrees and takes several dimensions.
Modes can compete or complement each other:
Cost, speed, accessibility, frequency, safety, comfort, etc.
Intermodal transportation:
Opened many opportunities for complementarity.
Intense competition over many modes in the transport chain.

19. 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.

20. Three dimensions of modal competition
Modal usage:
Comparative advantage of using a specific or a combination of modes.
Distance remains one of the basic determinant of modal usage.
The basic determinants of modal usage for passengers transportation.
For a similar distance, costs, speed and comfort can be significant factors.
Infrastructure usage:
Competition resulting from the presence of freight and passenger traffic on the same itineraries linking the same nodes.
Market area:
Competition being experienced between transport terminals for allocating new space or capturing new markets.

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

22. Passenger Transport by Mode, Japan, 1950-1999
Source: Japan Ministry of Transport

23. B – Intermodal Transportation
1. Intermodalism
2. Containerization
3. Modal Choice and Intermodal Transport Costs

24. Integrated transport systems
1. Intermodalism
Integrated transport systems
Use of at least two different modes in a trip from origin to destination through an intermodal transport chain.
Brought about in part by technology.
Techniques for transferring freight from one mode to another have facilitated intermodal transfers.
The container has been the major development:
Becoming a privileged mode of shipping for rail and maritime transportation.

25. Intermodal Transport Chain
Interchange
Connection
Composition
Decomposition
Local / Regional Distribution
National / International Distribution
Transport Terminal

26. 40-Foot Containers Doublestacked on a Rail Car
Source: Photo courtesy of Gary and Matt Hannes. The Intermodal Container Web Page.

27. Multimodal and Intermodal Transportation
Multimodal Point-to-Point Network
Intermodal Integrated Network C C A A B B
Transshipment
Rail
Road D D
Transshipment F F E E

28. 2. Containerization Container
Load unit that can be used by several transport modes.
Usable by maritime, railway and road modes.
Foremost expression on intermodal transportation.
Rectangular shape that can easily be handled.
Reference size is the Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU).
The most common container is the 40 footer (12 meters)

29. Advantages of containers
2. Containerization
Advantages of containers
Standard transport product:
Can be manipulated anywhere in the world (ISO standard).
All segments of the industry have access to the standard.
Specialized ships, trucks and wagons.
Flexibility of usage:
Transport a wide variety of goods ranging.
Raw materials, manufactured goods, cars to frozen products.
Liquids (oil and chemical products).
Perishable food products (“reefers”; 50% of all refrigerated cargo).
Management:
Unique identification number and a size type code.
Transport management no not in terms of loads, but in terms of unit.

30. 2. Containerization Costs: Speed: Warehousing: Security:
Low transport costs,
Speed:
Transshipment operations are minimal and rapid.
Containerships are on average 35% (19 knots versus 14 knots) faster than regular freighter ships.
Warehousing:
Its own warehouse.
Simpler and less expensive packaging.
Stacking capacity on ships, trains (doublestacking) and on the ground.
Security:
Contents of the container is unknown to shippers.
Can only be opened at the origin, at customs and at the destination.
Spoilage and losses (theft), especially those of valued commodities, are therefore reduced.

31. Five Generations of Containerships
First Generation ( )
Length
Draft
TEU
Converted Cargo Vessel
135 m
500
< 9 m
Converted Tanker
200 m
800
Second Generation ( )
1,000 –
2,500
Cellular Containership
215 m
10 m
Third Generation ( )
250 m
3,000
Panamax Class
11-12 m
290 m
4,000
Fourth Generation ( )
Post Panamax
275 –
305 m
4,000 –
5,000
11-13 m
Fifth Generation (2000-?)
Post Panamax Plus
5,000 –
8,000
335 m
13-14 m

32. Stacked 40-Foot Containers
Source: Photo courtesy of Gary and Matt Hannes. The Intermodal Container Web Page.

33. 20-Foot Container on Truck
Source: Photo courtesy of Gary and Matt Hannes. The Intermodal Container Web Page.

34. 20-Foot Tank Containers
Source: Photo courtesy of Gary and Matt Hannes. The Intermodal Container Web Page.

35. 40’ Reefer

36. “Kegger”

37. 4th Generation Containership
Source: COSCO.

38. 2. Containerization Disadvantages Consumption of space.
Infrastructure costs:
Container handling infrastructures, such as giant cranes, warehousing facilities and inland road and rail access, represent important investments for port authorities and load centers.
Stacking.
Management logistics:
Requires management and tracking of every container.
Empty travel.
Illicit trade:
Common instrument used in the illicit trade of drug and weapons, as well as for illegal immigration.
Worries about the usage of containers for terrorism.

39. 3. Modal Choice and Intermodal Transport Costs
Relationship between transport costs, distance and modal choice:
Road transport is usually used for short distances (from 500 to 750 km).
Railway transport for average distances.
Maritime transport for long distances (about 750 km).
Intermodalism:
The opportunity to combine modes.
Find a less costly alternative than an unimodal solution.
Efficiency of contemporary transport systems:
Capacity to route freight.
Capacity to transship it.

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

41. Intermodal Transportation Cost Function
Local / Regional Distribution Cost
Decomposition
C(dc)
National / International Distribution Cost
Connection
C(cn)
Costs
C(I)
Interchange
C(cn)
Connection
Composition
C(cp)
Origin
Transshipment
Destination