GEOG 80 – Transport GeographyProfessor: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue

Topic 3 – Transportation Modes

A. A Diversity of ModesB. Intermodal Transportation C. Passengers or Freight?

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.

5. Air Transport

■ Air Space• 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.

Air Freedom Rights

First Second

Home

Country A

Country B

Third

Fourth Fifth Sixth

Seventh Eight Ninth

5. Air Transport

■ 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.

Main Commercial Passenger Aircraft, 1935-2006

Aircraft 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 707-100 1958 897 6,820 110

Boeing 727-100 1963 917 5,000 94

Boeing 747-100 1970 907 9,045 385

McDonnell Douglas DC-10

1971 908 7,415 260

Airbus A300 1974 847 3,420 269

Boeing 767-200 1982 954 5,855 216

Boeing 747-400 1989 939 13,444 416

Boeing 777-200ER 1995 905 13,420 305

Airbus A340-500 2003 886 15,800 313

Airbus A380 2006 930 14,800 555

Sharjah

Early Intercontinental Air Routes, 1930s

Dakar

TangierCasablanca

Agadir

Natal

Rio de JaneiroBuenos Aires

Santiago

Punta Arenas

Alicante

MarseillesLisbon

AzoresNew York

Botwood

Eyeries London

Paris

Brindisi

Wadi Halfa

Khartoum

Juba

Nairobi

Mbeya

Harare

Johannesburg

Cape Town

CairoAlexandria

Athens

Jask

Gwadar

Karach

i

Jodhpur

Calcutta

Allhah

abad

Rangoon

Bangko

k

Alur Seta

r

BasraBag

hdad

Kuwait

Medan

Singapore

Palemban

g

Jaka

rta

Surabay

a

Kupang

Waingap

u

Darwin

Katheri

ne

Mount Isa

Brisban

e

SydneyCharl

eville

Longreach

Dayr a

z Zaw

r

Gaza

Amsterdam

Imperial Airways African Route (c1933)Imperial Airways/Quantas Australian Route (c1934)Aeropostale (1930)

Pan American Transatlantic Route (1939)KLM Amsterdam – Jakarta (1935)

Toulouse

Akyab

Flight Times by Piston and Jet Engines from Chicago

Piston Engine

Jet Engine

10 hours15 hours20 hours

24 hours30 hours 40 hours

10 hours

15 ho

urs

20 hours

24 hours

Average Airfare (roundtrip) between New York and London, 1946-2004

$6,500

$4,100

$2,600

$600$0

$1,000

$2,000

$3,000

$4,000

$5,000

$6,000

$7,000

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Range from New York of Different Modern Commercial Jet Planes

B-747-400 (11,400 km)

B-777-100 (7,400 km)

A-320

(3,70

0 km

)

World Air Travel and World Air Freight Carried, 1950-2002

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

1950

1953

1956

1959

1962

1965

1968

1971

1974

1977

1980

1983

1986

1989

1992

1995

1998

2001

Bill

ions

of p

asse

nger

s-km

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Bill

ions

of t

ons-

km

PassengersFreight

5. Air Transport

■ Airline companies• 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.

World’s 10 Largest Passengers Airlines, 2000 (in 1,000 passengers)

0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000

Delta Air Lines

American Airlines

United Airlines

Northwest Airlines

US Airways

Lufthansa

Continental Airlines

All Nippon Airways

Air France

British Airways

World’s 10 Largest Freight Airlines, 2000 (in 1,000 tons)

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000

Federal Express

United Parcel Service

Korean Air Lines

Lufthansa

Japan Airlines

Singapore Airlines

Cathay Pacific

Northwest Airlines

British Airways

Air France

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

Oneworld17%

Star24%

SkyTeam21%

Others38%

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.

Major Air Traffic Flows Between Regions, 2000 (% of IATA Scheduled Passengers)

35.523.2

15.9

3.2

1.3 1.1

2.6

1.5

3.9

1.9

1.31.8

1.71.7

North America

Central America

South America Africa

Europe

Middle East Asia

Southwest Pacific

1.7

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.

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 4 hours

Air Shuttle $128 1 hour (plus check in)

6. Modal Competition

■ 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.

Modal Competition

A

B

Mode

1 23

A

B

Infrastructure / Route

A

B

A

B

4 5

6

A

B

Market Area

Passenger Transport by Mode, Japan, 1950-1999

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 1999

Bill

ions

of P

asse

nger

Kilo

met

ers

Airline

Railway

Bus

Auto

B – Intermodal Transportation

■ 1. Intermodalism■ 2. Containerization■ 3. Modal Choice and Intermodal Transport Costs

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.

Intermodal Transport Chain

Composition Connection

Interchange

Decomposition

Local / Regional Distribution

National / International Distribution

Transport Terminal

40-Foot Containers Doublestacked on a Rail Car

Multimodal and Intermodal Transportation

AC

D

F

E

B

Multimodal Point-to-Point Network

AC

D

F

E

B

Intermodal Integrated Network

Rail

Road

Transshipment

Transshipment

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)

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.

2. Containerization

• Costs:• 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.

First Generation (1956-1970)

Converted Tanker

Second Generation (1970-1980)

Cellular Containership

Third Generation (1980-1988)

Panamax Class

Fourth Generation (1988-2000)

Post Panamax Plus

Fifth Generation (2000-?)

Post Panamax

Converted Cargo Vessel

Five Generations of Containerships TEULength

135 m

200 m

500

800

215 m1,000 –2,500

250 m 3,000

290 m 4,000

275 –305 m

4,000 –5,000

335 m5,000 –8,000

Draft

< 9 m

10 m

11-12 m

11-13 m

13-14 m

Stacked 40-Foot Containers

20-Foot Container on Truck

20-Foot Tank Containers

40’ Reefer

“Kegger”

4th Generation Containership

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.

3. Modal Choice and Intermodal Transport Costs

■ Modal choice• 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.

Distance

Tran

spor

t cos

ts p

er u

nit Road

Rail Maritime

D1 D2

C1 C2

C3

Distance, Modal Choice and Transport Costs

Intermodal Transportation Cost Function

Costs

Origin Destination

Composition

Connection

Connection

Interchange

DecompositionC(T)

Transshipment

C(cp)

C(cn)

C(I)

C(cn)

C(dc)Local / Regional Distribution Cost

National / International Distribution Cost