Freight Terminals Research Articles

Methodological solutions for increased efficiency of modelling and simulation of seaports and inland freight terminals

The paper outlines the results of research aimed at developing an efficient simulation modelling capability for seaports and inland freight terminals. By providing the domain-oriented process of simulation modelling with a uniform and coherent methodological basis and integrating it with artificial intelligence concepts, it was possible to construct a powerful tool—Transnode. This is a decision-support expert system which enables efficient and fast modelling and simulation of any seaport or inland freight terminal, or a group of terminals, large or small, multipurpose or specialized, at optional scale. It produces simulation results which enable a comprehensive analysis of the port or inland terminal to be made as an element of the total transportation framework. Both methodological aspects of the developed solutions and practical features of the Transnode system are discussed in the paper.

An approach to level of service design of air freight terminals for small express parcels

A framework is presented for determining design standards for air freight terminals for small express parcel operations. A theory is developed based on the well known characteristics of traffic flow and this is tested against actual flow characteristics at a small parcels terminal. Using a level of service approach, the authors derive design standards for such facilities.

Cost‐benefit analysis of an air freight terminal

This paper contains a cost‐benefit analysis of public investment in the air freight terminal Brucargo at the Brussels National Airport. Costs are investment and operation expenses. Benefits are consumer surplus and operation income. Consumer surplus is estimated from the observed shift of the demand function. The investment appears to have a high rate of return.

The location and sizing of urban freight terminals with multiple planning periods

The location and sizing of urban freight terminals with multiple planning periods

DISCRIMINATIORY ANALYSIS OF LAND-USE IN AICH PREFECTURE

The purpose of this paper is to deduce the optimal land-use type from the viewpoint of regional planning. The whole area of Aichi Prefecture was divided into 5, 142 standard meshes (grids), and for each mesh, 17 variables were examined to determine the types of land-use. Adopted variables are as followings; A. Physiographic factors: (1) elevation, (2) relief energy (land relief) (3) drainage density (density of valleys) (4) gradient of land, (5) practically utilizable amounts of ground water, (6) potential of ground water, (7) fertility of farm land, and (8) fertility of forest. B. Distance factors: time-distace to, (1) Nagoya, (2) regional centers, (3) freight terminals, (4) railway stations, and (5) highway interchanges. C. Social factors: (1) forest reservation, (2) improved faun land, (3) irrigated up-land fields, and (4) density of road networks. Five types of land-use (residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, and forestal) were predesigned by factorial analysis. These types were individually diiend by control-ling the difinite amounts of area coverage in a mesh. The satisfied meshes (grids) were named here “typical”. By this procedure, 1, 037 meshes were accounted for “typical” ones and their numbers corresponding to each type of land-use were shown in Table 1. The ratio of discriminant power is accounted for 87.7 percent. The discriminant functions were listed in Table 2. The largest discriminant scores for each mesh were culculated employing those functions and they were utilized for the computer mapping (Figure 1).

British Railway Traffic in 1921

The traffic records of the eighty-seven railway companies operating in Britain prior to the 1923 amalgamations enable each company to be ranked on the basis of variations in freight conveyed per route kilometre. These measures of mean freight density can, however, only be used as an indication of actual traffic flows on the smaller systems and are best regarded as an index of intensity of use of a particular network. Coal-class traffic accounted for 59 per cent of all traffic conveyed but represented over 90 per cent of all traffic originating on several of the smaller systems serving the South Wales and South Yorkshire coalfields. The most intensively used systems were the smaller coalfield networks together with the Metropolitan line, which linked the London main-line freight terminals. The large systems linking London with the industrial regions of the Midlands and northern England recorded mean freight traffic densities above the average, whereas the systems confined to eastern and southern England recorded much lighter than average flows. The proportion of total traffic derived from within the region served by a system, rather than by exchange with neighbouring networks, was highest on the coalfield undertakings of the North Staffs., North Eastern and Taff Vale railways, and lowest upon those systems designed to provide links between major trunk routes and traversing areas with low traffic potential. GEOGRAPHICAL analyses of railway systems are normally concerned to explain two principal features: (I) the evolution and existing character of the network and its components, and (2) the generation, composition and distribution of the traffic conveyed over this network. Existing studies tend to focus attention upon either the formal or the functional characteristics of an undertaking, and the paucity of surveys of traffic patterns on British railways reflects the difficulties involved in obtaining reliable and comprehensive data on freight and passenger movements. Outside the United Kingdom, and particularly in North America, such data are much more readily available. Functional classifications of railway networks based upon variations in traffic density have been devised for the United States and other areas by W. H. Wallace,1 while F. H. Thomas has analysed the association between certain classes of freight traffic and the hinterlands in which these commodities are produced.2 Studies of this type are impossible unless detailed information on traffic passing over individual routes is available. Furthermore, if valid conclusions on the associations between a railway and the region which it serves are to be established, then additional data relating to the total traffic generated within a region and to the allocation of this traffic between the various competing transport media must also be provided. It is impossible for the geographer to examine contemporary rail traffic patterns in Britain in any detail since freight and passenger statistics are published only on a national basis. Thus, maps depicting traffic density over the component lines of the network can only be constructed on the infrequent occasions when special traffic surveys are made.3 Prior to nationalization in I948, the railway companies also presented traffic operating data which related to each system as a whole, and a more detailed account of traffic can only be obtained by an examination of the records of the many companies existing prior to the I923 regrouping. Even these records relate only to the overall carrying activities of each undertaking. However, in view of the sharing of rail services in Britain between a total of over eighty separate undertakings before I923, the records relate to less extensive operating areas than those created as the result

An Authority in Action. An Account of the Port of New York Authority and Its Recent Activities

The following is a discussion of the New York Port Authority's most recent contributions in coping with the complex terminal and transportation problems which beset the huge metropolitan area which it serves. It covers, first, the Port Authority's creation; second, its organizational and financial structure; third, the means by which it is subject to popular control; and finally, recent Port Authority endeavors which dramatize the agency's dynamic character. Before commencing this discussion, I should like to point out that the Port Authority is currently operating twenty-two terminal and transportation facilities in the metropolitan area of New York and northern New Jersey, an area composed of over I3,000,000 people residing in more than 360 separate and distinct communities, embracing 220 municipalities. Port Authority facilities represent a net capital investment of over one billion dollars. They consist of four bridges and two tunnels between the States of New York and New Jersey, four airports, and two heliports, six marine terminals, three inland freight terminals, a grain terminal and a bus terminal. In addition, the Port Authority maintains nine regional trade development offices in the United States and overseas, appears continuously before Congress and federal agencies on matters of concern to the commerce of the Port and makes periodic studies of ways to improve that commerce, including the feasibility of providing additional terminal and transportation facilities.'