Freight Transport Performance Research Articles

Environmental Sustainability and Freight Transport Performance in the EU – An Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (ARCH) Model Analysis

Transportation, which is a significant facilitator of global trade and development, faces a serious problem with respect to sustainability. Firstly, there is the need to minimise greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining profitability and social responsibility. Transportation will be totally decarbonised by consistently moving towards a more sustainable, diverse and resilient range of transportation modes with advanced vehicle technologies. However, what impact this will have on the economic performance of transport service providers remains a big question. The aim of this study is to examine the short-run relationship between environmental sustainability in road freight transportation and the economic performance of the road freight transport sector in the European Union using an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) model. The analysis was conducted using annual data spanning from 2008 to 2021. The results indicate that energy taxes on transport and storage, biodiesel consumption and vehicle capacity utilisation have a positive and significant impact on freight transport performance (FTP). The findings suggest that policymakers could use energy taxes and incentives to promote the use of biodiesel in the transportation sector to increase FTP. Additionally, efforts to improve vehicle capacity utilisation could significantly increase FTP and have positive environmental implications such as reducing traffic congestion and emissions.

Spatiality in freight transport efficiency

AbstractThe relationship between economic growth and transport sector is an important and popular topic for researchers, but it also has several untapped areas. To ensure continuous economic growth, it is necessary to answer how and to what extent economic sectors contribute to sustainability; what factors or sets of factors can determine freight performance in a country or region; and how it affects the global economy. This study aims to test the presence of spatial dependence. In this research, the authors looked for the spatial relationships between economic activity (GDP) and freight transport performance using spatial econometric models. The results showed that the spatial impact of freight transport performance and GDP significantly influence each other. The intensity calculation shows that the Baltic States have a high intensity in road freight transport, followed by the Central European region. Eastern Europe, including Russia and the Baltics, are prominent players in rail freight. Furthermore, the spatial econometric models have highlighted that a country with high GDP has some sort of "suction" effect on neighbouring countries with lower GDP along with the freight performance. This is especially true for rail freight. In the long run, the outlined results may even support strategic decision-makers in managing the economic impacts of both road and rail freight transport at the regional level.

Identification of the Impact of Transport Performance on the Economy of Particular Area

Abstract Transport is one of the most important economic sectors in the world. It is a fundamental and important element of a country’s GDP. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is considered one of the most important indicators of economic performance of a country. GDP can be compiled for both a country and a region. Changes in technology and economic structure of the production system of an area are the central issues of long-term economic growth according to the increase in the gross value added of a region. In this paper, the authors focus on finding out how the development of road freight transport performance affects the economy of a region. At the same time, they try to answer the question to what extent transport regulation can influence the economic development of an area. The research is mainly focused on EU policies aimed at regulating road freight transport.

ГРУЗОВОЙ ТРАНСПОРТ РОССИИ: НЕКОТОРЫЕ ИТОГИ 2022 ГОДА

The author analyzes some of the outcomes of Russian freight transport performance in 2022, as well as the ways to transform the entire transport industry of Russia under the increased sanctions pressure. She considers topical issues of modernizing the transport and logistics infrastructure in the East of Russia, highlights the problems causing the need to accelerate the development of the Eastern zone of Russian Railways and analyzes the dynamics of cargo shipment by Russian sea transport in foreign navigation and the use of the so-called shadow fleet, which contributed to the growth of Russian energy exports in 2022. Finally, the author assesses the prospects of increasing pipeline deliveries to the Asian markets and enhancing the capacity of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC)

The place and role of freight transport in the Polish economy against the background of the European Union

The article synthetically characterizes the Polish freight transport sector compared to its counterpart in the European Union. The article presents the changes during the years 1990-2019 taking place in the number of various types of transport means used, belonging to Poland and 27 European Union countries. The volume and structure of the freight transport performance of Poland and the European Union as well as the changes taking place in them over the last 30 years were also characterised. The reasons for changes in the structure of freight transport performance in Poland were analysed. Various types of transport infrastructure in Poland were described and analysed, and the changes taking place in it were presented. The impact of EU funds on changes in the transport infrastructure of Poland was also described.

The issue of transport documentation circulation between logistic processes participants

The performance of freight transport with the use of means of transport of various modes requires the completion of several documents accompanying the shipment. The documentation accompanying the load is often completed in paper form, which causes many errors and, as a result, problems with the effective implementation of transport processes. In the era of progressive digitization of information flow, the possibility of filling in documentation in electronic form and sending it between the IT systems seems necessary to increase the competitiveness of enterprises. The article aims to identify the problems and needs of participants in transport processes in terms of completing transport documentation, accessing this documentation during and after the transport, and sending this documentation between these participants. The analysis of the problems mentioned above and needs was made based on studies of industry literature, expert knowledge, and a survey conducted by participants in transport processes. Additionally, for the analysis, participants in the transport processes in all modes of transport were identified. The literature research and the survey of participants of transport processes in various modes of transport showed many problems they encounter daily in the circulation of transport documentation. The common denominator for these problems and needs is the necessity to fill in the transport documentation manually in many cases and also to send it between process participants using traditional mail. The literature review and the survey results indicate that maximizing digitization in terms of filling in and circulation of transport documentation would improve logistics processes. The measurable effects of digitization of selected elements of transport processes can already be observed thanks to the electronic exchange of EDI data between IT systems of participants in logistics processes.

A Spatial Economic Study of Rail Freight in the European Economic Area

The present study explores whether the European Union’s transport policy measures of the last decade have fulfilled the expectations, i.e. whether there has been a positive change in the field of rail freight transport in the region. Data on the volumes of freight transport in the recent period have been analysed with freight transport intensity as an indicator. The values have been then translated into a spatial econometric model, looking for spatiality in the European Economic Region, including countries such as Norway, Switzerland or even Russia, extending the scope of the study to 37 countries. It has been proven that there is a spatial correlation between rail freight transport performance and GDP in Europe, which has a positive effect on countries with high GDP and a negative effect on low GDP countries in terms of performance. There is a particularly high intensity of rail freight in the Baltic region, as well as in Ukraine and Russia. Furthermore, it can be stated that rail freight has not undergone any significant changes in the last 10 years.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on road freight transportation – A Colombian case study

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc worldwide, with profound economic, environmental, and social implications. Fears about the economic situation have called attention to freight transportation performance as a derivative economic development demand. It is critical to economic growth, especially in industrialized countries with a strong positive relationship to road transport. The empirical evidence in developing countries, such as Colombia, showed that economic growth has had linked to road freight transport regardless of comparisons with other economic sectors. Thie main objective of the paper is to assess the impact caused by the COVID-19 restrictions on freight transport by road to depict the challenge between freight transport performance and economic growth. The total freight transported in 2020 was predicted based on a time series analysis considering the system's performance. As a result, in 2020, the ton of freight transported became only 40% of the predicted freight in the most critical month. The analysis can help planners implement policies to improve freight transport behavior and react during future economic downturns. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate that freight transportation must be fast and flexible, is crucial to act in the short term, and consider the long-term recovery. In addition, cooperation among the various economic sectors' stakeholders must be necessary.

Conceptual exploration of power peak shaving by smart train operation in rail freight transport

Powerful electric locomotives with high traction performance are foreseen to be used to boost the overall performance of freight transport. However, they would exert extra burden on the power supply system, so the power peak demand would be a bottleneck for future freight transport. To avoid large-scale modifications to the existing systems but ensure operational reliability, this study investigates the formation of power peaks and explores power peak shaving concepts to let the existing systems be more reliable and accommodate more freight traffic. Different from many previous studies which focus on energy saving, this study aims at lowering the power peak demand by “smart train operation”, i.e. altering the train speed profile without compromising running time. This study is mainly performed by simulation based on a standardized freight operation with full regenerative braking used. But this study also shows a real case study based on measurement data of power history from an onboard energy meter. The study shows the formation of power peaks in different conditions and suggests some possible measures to shave the power peak demand. The study also shows that there is a compromise between power peak shaving and energy saving, to which more attention is needed in future studies.

МЕТОДОЛОГИЯ СБОРА ДАННЫХ В ГОРОДСКИХ ГРУЗОВЫХ ПЕРЕВОЗКАХ

The well-known approaches to the process of modeling the demand in urban freight transportation in conditions of limited availability of adequate data are considered. The main task is to select a model for creating a reliable system for analyzing urban freight traffic. Demand assessment models were chosen as input data because they are the most representative for assessing urban freight transport performance.

Sustainable Transport of Goods Using Combined Transport Solutions: The Case of EU

Abstract This paper analyzes the importance of bimodal solutions in the rail-road transport of goods with an emphasis on the aspect of ecology within the geographical region of EU-28. Using the panel regression analysis in the period from 2010 to 2019, we are trying to confirm the dependence between the road and rail transport of goods by applying several freight units’ measures: the freight transport performance in tonne-kilometres, the freight transport performance in tonne-kilometres per thousand of USD, and the amount of goods transported in thousands of tonnes. The application of data to all selected freight units’ measures in the regression models confirms a relationship between road and rail transport. A direct relationship between these two modes of transport confirms the complementarity effect, which means that, in most cases, the goods transport solutions require the combination of road and rail mode, where the railway should be considered as the main transport/carrier, the road transport, however, should have the role of short pre-transport or post-transport. The ecological aspect of such bimodal solutions can also be emphasized since the railway transport is considered as an ecological mode.

Evaluating the Rail-Based Multimodal Freight Transportation after HSR Entry in Yangtze River Delta Economics Zone

In recent years, China keeps working on restructuring the country’s multimodal transport and highly develops the high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure to improve transport efficiency. As the economic engine of China, the Yangtze River Delta region keeps leading the HSR development and the transporting modal transformation within the whole country. The fast development of HSR on the one hand highly improves passengers’ travel efficiency and, on the other hand, releases the capacity of conventional rail infrastructures to support regional multimodal freight transport. This study applies a three-level AHP structure and constructs a comprehensive index to evaluate the development of a rail-based multimodal freight transport network including railway, rail-water, and rail-road. The comprehensive index contains 14 quantitative and 8 qualitative indexes, covering the rail-based infrastructures, multimodal transport capability, freight transport performance, and transport sustainability. The comprehensive index is then applied to analyze the rail-based multimodal freight transport for the Yangtze River Delta region. The operational data of 59 freight stations and more than 200 railway links of the Yangtze River Delta were recorded. About 172 valid questionnaires were collected to score the qualitative indexes, and all the quantitative indexes are scored based on the real-life freight data. The results reveal the impacts of HSR development on rail freight transportation and show that Zhejiang has led rail freight transportation while Shanghai mainly leads the waterway freight transportation. Meanwhile, Anhui performs very well on road-rail transportation and Jiangsu has made a great improvement on water-rail transportation.

Road freight transportation in a period of economic instability: A panel data study in four EU Mediterranean countries

For the majority of EU member countries, but especially those of the South i.e., Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, the last decade was characterised by a period of negative economic growth and general instability of their economies. During that period, the four countries faced significant changes to the output of several economic sectors, a development that has affected freight transportation in many ways. This paper examines the impacts that this economic environment had on road freight transport output. It aims to, first, analyse the trends and variations of several freight transport indicators and compare them to economic indicators that express the state of the economy in each of the four countries. Secondly, to create mathematical relations between these freight transport and economic indicators by analysing a number of panel data gathered over a period of 15 years from 2005 to 2019. Our results indicated that the “traditional”, relationship between the GDP and road freight transport performance for national and international operations seems to hold for Greece, Spain, and Portugal with positive elasticities but negative in the case of Italy (an anomaly that may indicate the start of decoupling or other deeper economic and social reasons). Further analysis revealed correlations with the index of production in the manufacturing sector, indicating the countries' low sensitivity to changes of the economic sector. This is also valid for the relationship with the countries' exporting activity, revealing the differences between the four countries in their export trade, i.e., different degrees of commodification, types of exported goods, or on trading with particular destination partners.

Examining freight performance of third-party logistics providers within the automotive industry in India: an environmental sustainability perspective

The purpose of this study is to examine relationships between measures of sustainable freight transport performance (in the context of mid-sized third-party auto components’ logistics players) with the associated externalities and firms’ intrinsic characteristics when information exchange occurs between logistics firms and the auto manufacturer. Employing a survey-based research methodology, appropriate data were collected for a number of third-party logistics players, thus yielding a total of 708 responses from the operational managers of these firms. The research construct was validated through a rigorous procedure involving measurement and structural equation model. From a theoretical perspective, the results of this study provide evidences supporting systemic relationships between internal enablers of the logistics firms and externalities in the backdrop of environmental sustainability. Major findings indicate that transportation planning and distribution network and, commodity considerations backed by top management support can further environmental performance. Further, we also find evidence that effective transport planning and distribution network design used in conjunction with commodity considerations can be a source of sustainable supply chain performance. By bridging the literature pertaining to environmental sustainability, information exchange, and pertinent external/internal nuances of logistics firms, this study reveals novel findings that can help logistics players streamline operations focused at achieving environmental sustainability performance.

Multi-Criteria Evaluation of Railway Network Performance in Countries of the TEN-T Orient–East Med Corridor

Railway networks have different levels of development, which affects the overall transport process and integrated sustainable development. This paper presents a methodology to assess and classify the railway network performance along the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) core network corridor. The Orient–East Med corridor (OEM) has been examined. Twenty-two infrastructural, economic and technological criteria for assessment of railway transport have been proposed. The countries were ranked used multi-criteria decision making (MCDM), by applying the Sequential Interactive Modelling for Urban Systems (SIMUS). A sensitivity analysis was performed regarding each objective, and then, their allowable range of variation was determined without modifying the whole ranking of countries. The criteria weights have been determined on the basis of the output of using the SIMUS method. It was found that the main criteria for ranking the countries are: length of the connecting railway lines of the corridor in the country, length of the railway lines in the country, number of intermodal terminals, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, passengers transport performance, freight transport performance for the railway network, corridor freight usage intensity. It was found that the railway transport in the area of the OEM corridor located in Central Europe is better developed than in the Southeast European area. A cluster analysis was performed to classify countries into groups to verify the results. The results show that the eight countries included in the OEM corridor can be classified into three groups. The methodology could be used to make decisions about transport planning and improvement of the connectivity and sustainability of the railway transport, considering their development.

A computerized system to evaluate freight transport performance in West Sumatera, Indonesia

Most of economic regional developments in Indonesia depend on freight transport system, efficient freight transport system would produce low cost of transport, it will affect on the price of good and the market. Freight transport in Indonesia is usually served by trucks, these mode has been identified as the transport mode that operate with high cost and inefficient. This paper shows the result of research on freight transport in West Sumatra that operated in Padang. This result is based from direct interview on 100 truck drivers in Padang. It shows that majority the trucks serve freight transportation between cities in West Sumatera and other Province in Sumatera island, most of goods that transported from Padang are construction materials. During deliver the goods, they require time about 1-2 days and always stop several times for break and eat. This is because the drivers drive the truck alone. The total operational cost spends during delivery to other province in Sumatera Island between Rp 1 millions - Rp 2 millions, there are illegal retributions for about 1-5% of operational cost, these retributions are conducted by person or organization. The Regulations that impede the performance of freight transport are prohibition of trucks enter the city in the morning and afternoon at peak hours.

Freight Transport Emissions Calculators as a Tool of Sustainable Logistic Planning

The freight transport performance is growing. The transport sector is also one of the largest producers of emissions. This must be reflected not only by production companies but also by other stakeholders. The issue of transport emissions is particularly important for city residents, so today the concept of sustainable city logistics is emphasized. Companies should deal with the amount of produced emissions. The use of emission calculators would support operational, tactical and strategic business decision-making. The aim of this article is to analyse the approaches used in available free calculators of emission arising from the freight transport. The focus was on the transport modes that calculators include, input data, output data and methodologies used to calculate emissions. The method of systematic review was used to search analysed freight transport emissions calculators. The method of content analysis was used to analyse inputs, outputs and freight transport emissions calculator’s methodologies. The method of qualitative comparative analysis was used to analyse and compare the freight transport emissions calculators.

Research on Relationship between Freight Transport Performance and GDP in Slovakia and EU Countries

Research on Relationship between Freight Transport Performance and GDP in Slovakia and EU Countries

Risk assessment issues in the process of freight transport performance

Abstract In the presented paper, authors focus on the issues related to risk assessment of transport processes performance. Thus, there are presented the basic definitions related to the research area. Later, there is discussed the possibility of risk assessment performance in the freight transport, outlining an assessment approach compatible with ISO 31000 standard and ERM concept. This gives the possibility for the presentation of risk assessment of transport processes performance in the chosen road transport company. The article concludes with a summary, including directions for further research.

Statistical survey of road freight transport performance indicators

This paper deals with the statistical survey of road freight transport performance indicators in the Slovak Republic and Europe. The aim is to point out disagreements in statistical data. The data will be compared in the databases of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic and Eurostat databases. These disagreements concern performance indicators for road freight and transport of passengers. The first part of the article describes the role of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic and Eurostat. Further, the survey data is shown. In the middle part there are disagreements in the statistics. At the end of the article are explained problems with collecting data from road freight transport companies.