GEOG 80 – Transport Geography

Professor: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue

Topic 3 – Transportation Modes

A. A Diversity of Modes
B. Intermodal Transportation
C. Passengers or Freight?
1. Transportation Modes

■ Transport modes:
• Vehicles:
• Mobile segment.
• Supporting the mobility of passengers, freight and information.
• Infrastructures:
• Fixed segment.
• Supporting movements.
• Three basic types:
• Land (road, rail and pipelines).
• Water (shipping).
• Air.
• Each mode had a set of technical, operational and commercial
characteristics.
Performance Comparison for Selected Freight Modes

Vehicle Capacity 1 Barge Equivalency

1500 Tons
52,500 Bushels 1
Barge 453,600 Gallons
22,500 Tons
787,500 Bushels 0.06
15 barges on tow 6,804,000 Gallons
100 Tons
3,500 Bushels 15
Hopper car 30,240 Gallons
10,000 Tons
350,000 Bushels 0.15
100 car train unit 3,024,000 Gallons
26 Tons
910 Bushels 57.7
Semi-trailer truck 7,865 Gallons
B – A Diversity of Modes

■ 1. Road Transportation
■ 2. Rail Transportation
■ 3. Pipelines
■ 4. Water Transportation
■ 5. Air Transportation
■ 6. Modal Competition
1. Road Transportation

■ Overview
• Large consumers of space.
• Lowest level of physical constraints among transportation modes.
• Environmental constrains are significant in road construction.
• Average operational flexibility (vehicles can serve several
purposes).
• High maintenance costs, both for the vehicles and
infrastructures.
• Linked to light industries (rapid movements of freight in small
batches).
1. Road Transportation

■ History
• The first land roads were trails (hunting).
• With the first nation-states trails started to be used for
commercial purposes.
• Domestification of animals such as horses, mules and camels.
• Wheeled vehicles encouraged construction of better roads.
• Requires a level of labor organization and administrative control:
• Provided by a central government offering a level of military protection
over trade routes.
• 3,000 BC the first road systems in Mesopotamia.
• Roman Empire 300 BC built the first comprehensive road network.
Roman Road (Appian Way)
1. Road Transportation

■ Modern road networks

• Creation of modern nation-states (17th century):
• National road transportation systems were formally established.
• France: Royal Roads system spanning 24,000 km.
• Great Britain: 32,000 km system of private toll turnpikes.
• United States: 3 million km of roads, most unpaved, was in operation by
the early 20th century.
■ Road engineering
• Construction of reliable and low cost hard surface roads.
• Scottish engineer McAdam developed a process:
• Hard and waterproof road surfaces made by cemented crushed stone,
bound together either with water or with bitumen.
• Improved the reliability and the travel speed on roads.
Macadam Road Construction, Maryland 1823
1. Road Transportation

■ National highway systems

• Road development accelerated in after WWII.
• American Interstate highway system:
• Initiated in 1956.
• About 56,000 km was built from the 1950s to the 1970s.
• Additional 9,000 km between 1975 and 1998.
• Overall, about 70,000 km of four-lane and six-lane highways were
constructed.
• Linking all major American cities, coast to coast.
• Trans-Canada highway completed in 1962.
• By the 1970s, every modern nation has constructed a national
highway system.
Length of the Interstate Highway System (in miles)

50,000
45,000
40,000
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
World Automobile Production and Fleet, 1965-2002

600 44
42
550
40
500 38
36

Production (millions)
450
34
Fleet (millions)

400
32
350 30
28
300
26
250 24
200 22
Fleet 20
150 Production 18
100 16
65
67
69
71
73
75
77
79
81
83
85
87
89

93
95
97
99
01
91
19
19

19
19

19

19
19
19
19
19

19

19
19
19
19
19

19

19
20
1. Road Transportation

■ Public sector
• Main supplier of road transport infrastructures.
• Unpractical to use a similar pricing system than a commercial
enterprise.
• Most roads are not economically profitable but must be socially
present as they are essential to service populations.
• Only possible on specific trunks that have an important and
stable traffic.
• Toll roads:
• Highways linking large cities.
• Bridge and tunnels.
• Can expropriate the necessary land for road construction.
• Economies of scale and their indivisibility.
1. Road Transportation

■ Costs
• Rights of passage.
• Development costs (planning).
• Construction and expropriation costs.
• Maintenance and administration costs.
• Losses in land taxes (urban environment).
• External costs (accidents and pollution).
■ Income
• Registration.
• Gas (taxes)
• Purchases of vehicles (taxes).
• Tolls, parking, and insurance fees.
2. Rail Transportation

■ Overview
• Composed of a traced path on which are bound vehicles.
• Average level of physical constrains:
• Linked to the types of locomotives.
• Affected by the gradient.
• Heavy industries are traditionally linked with rail transport
systems.
• Containerization:
• Improved the flexibility of rail transportation.
• Linking it with road and maritime modes.
2. Rail Transportation

■ Geographical setting
• Established differently because different goals were to be
achieved.
• Access to resources.
• Servicing regional economies.
• Territorial control.
■ Rail monopolies
• High level of economic and territorial control.
• Monopoly in Europe and oligopoly in North America.
• Regular (scheduled), but rigid, services.
• Transport mode the most constrained by the physiography.
Geographical Settings of Rail Lines

Penetration Lines Local / Regional Networks Transcontinental Lines

Nation A

Nation B
2. Rail Transportation

■ Technical issues
• Space consumption:
• Small along lines.
• Important at terminals.
• Gradient and turns.
• Vehicles:
• Very flexible in terms of vehicles and there is a wide variety of them filling
different purposes.
• Bulk, liquids, grain, containers, passengers, cattle, cars, coal.
• Gauge:
• Standard gauge of 1.4351 meters for North America and for most
Western Europe.
Domestic Rail Passenger Travel and Freight Activity, G7
Countries, 1996

United States
1979.7
United Kingdom

Japan

Italy

Germany

France

Canada

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Passenger-kms (billions) Ton-kms (billions)

Rail Track Mileage and Number of Class I Rail Carriers,
United States, 1840-2003

300,000 200
Rail Track Mileage 180
250,000 Class I Rail Carriers
160

140
200,000
Miles of tracks

Rail Carriers
120

150,000 100

80
100,000
60

40
50,000
20
0 0
1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
2. Rail Transportation

■ Economic rationale
• Market area and capacity:
• Transport raw materials over long distances.
• Move passengers and freight (cars, agricultural equipment, etc.)
• The average length was 1,300 km compared with 700 km for trucks.
• Intermodal integration favored segmentation and specialization.
• Costs:
• High construction and maintenance costs.
• Shipping costs decrease with distance and load.
• Transshipments and train assembly increase costs.
• Rail operating costs: labor (up to 60%), locomotives (16%) and wagons,
fuel, maintenance and equipment (24%).
2. Rail Transportation

• Benefits:
• Accelerated the industrialization process.
• Accelerated economic development and human settlements.
• Multiplier effects on industrial activities.
• Safety; after air transportation, the safest mode.
• Regulation:
• Highly dependent from government subsidies.
• Governments financing, mainly for the sake of national economic
imperatives.
2. Rail Transportation

■ High speed train networks

• Require special lines, but can also use the existing lines at a
lower speed
• Speed of about 300 km/h.
• Separation between passenger and freight traffic.
• By-passing several centers of less importance.
• Over average distances, they have proved to be able to compete
effectively with air transportation.
Travel Times before and after the Introduction of a High
Speed Train Service

Seoul - Busan
Tokyo - Osaka
Paris - Marseille
Madrid - Seville
London - Paris
Paris - Bruxelles
Berlin - Hannover
After
Hannover - Wurzburg Before
Firenze - Rome

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. Pipelines

■ Overview
• Single purpose: carry one commodity from a location to another.
• Built largely with private capital:
• Has to be in place before any revenues are generated; significant capital
commitment.
• Large quantities of products where no other feasible means of
transport (usually water) is available.
• Two main products dominate pipeline traffic:
• Oil and gas.
• 17% of all tons-km in the US.
• Locally pipelines are significant for the transport of water.
• Low physical constraints:
• The landscape and pergelisol in arctic / subarctic environments.
3. Pipelines

■ Pipeline systems
• Construction costs vary according to the diameter:
• Increase proportionally with the distance and with the viscosity of fluids.
• Longest pipelines:
• Gas pipeline: Alberta to Sarnia (Canada); 2,911 km.
• Oil pipeline: Transiberian; 9,344 km in length.
• Trans Alaskan pipeline:
• 1,300 km long.
• Built under difficult conditions.
• Above the ground for most of its path.
• System has very little flexibility:
• Cannot respond well to geographical fluctuations of the supply or
demand.
Trans-Alaska Pipeline
Oil and Gas Pipelines Mileage in the United States, 1960-
2003

1,600,000
Oil pipeline
1,400,000
Gas pipeline
1,200,000

1,000,000

800,000

600,000

400,000

200,000

0
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
4. Water Transport

■ Issues
• Dominant support of global trade:
• International and seaborne trade are interrelated.
• 96% of the world trade is carried by maritime transportation (mass).
• International trade and maritime transportation:
• Interrelated.
• 25,000 billion tons-km are on average transported annually.
• 7,000 by rail and 3,000 by road.
• 71% of all freight shipped globally.
• For every $1,000 of exports, there is one ton of freight being shipped by
maritime transportation.
International Seaborne Trade and Exports of Goods, 1955-
2001

7.0
Seaborne Trade (billions of tons of goods loaded)
6.0
Exports of Goods (trillions of $US)
5.0

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0
4. Water Transport

■ Domains of maritime circulation

• Geographical by its physical attributes:
• 71% of the terrestrial surface.
• Strategic by its control.
• Commercial by its usage.
■ Maritime routes
• Corridors of a few kilometers in width.
• Trying to avoid the discontinuities of land transport.
• Function:
• Obligatory points of passage, which are strategic places.
• Physical constraints (coasts, winds, marine currents, depth, reefs, ice).
• Political borders.
• The majority of maritime circulation takes place along coastlines.
Domains of Maritime Circulation

St. Lawrence / Great Lakes Rhine / Ruhr / Danube Yangtze

Bosporus Chang Jiang
Gibraltar
Suez Perl
Mississippi Hormuz

Bab el-Mandab
Panama Mekong
Nile
Malacca

Amazon

Good Hope

Magellan
4. Water Transport

■ Maritime enclaves
• Countries that have difficulties to undertake maritime trade:
• Not part of an oceanic domain of maritime circulation.
• Requires agreements with neighboring countries:
• Access to a port facility through a road, a rail line or through a river.
• Not necessarily imply an exclusion from international trade:
• Substantially higher transport costs.
• On average 50% higher than countries that are not landlocked.
• Less than 40% of the trade volume of the median coastal country.
• May impair economic development.
Maritime Enclaves and Accessibility

Less than 700 km

More than 700 km
Maritime Enclave
4. Water Transport

■ Global fleet
• About 85,000 ships of more than 100 tons.
• Half of them performing transport functions and the other half
performing service functions (e.g. tugs).
• Growth of the number of ships as well as their average size.
• Oceanic maritime traffic dominantly concerns freight.
Registered World Fleet, 1914-2000

600,000 7
Number of ships
500,000 Total gross tonnage (1,000s) 6

Average Tonnage (in 1,000 tons)

Average tonnage
5
400,000
4
300,000
3
200,000
2

100,000 1

0 0
1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
4. Water Transport

■ Passenger vessels
• Passenger ferries:
• People are carried across relatively short bodies of water in a shuttle-type
service.
• Tend to be small and fast vessels.
• Cruise ships:
• Passengers are taken on trips of various durations, usually over several
days.
• Usually very large capacity ships.
• Before air transportation, serviced by liner passenger ships, dominantly
over the North Atlantic.
■ Roll on-Roll off (RORO) vessels
• Allow cars, trucks and trains to be loaded directly on board.
• The largest are the car carriers that transport vehicles from
assembly plants to the main markets.
Cruise Ship
Channel Ferry Ship Entering the Port of Le Havre, France
RO-RO Cargo Ship
4. Water Transport

■ Bulk cargo
• Freight, both dry or liquid, that is not packaged.
• Minerals (oil, coal, iron ore) and grains.
• Requires the use of specialized ships such as oil tankers as well
as specialized transshipment and storage facilities.
• Single origin, destination and client.
• Prone to economies of scale.
■ Break-bulk cargo
• General cargo that has been packaged in some way with the use
of bags, boxes or drums.
• Numerous origins, destinations and clients.
• Before containerization, economies of scale were difficult to
achieve.
World’s Largest Dry-Bulk Carrier, the Berge Stalh
The Regina Maersk
4. Water Transport

■ Growth of maritime traffic

• Increase in energy and mineral cargoes:
• Growing demand from developed economies.
• Many developing countries, such as China, are also increasingly involved
in importing raw materials.
• Globalization:
• International division of the production and trade liberalization.
• Technical improvements in ship and maritime terminals.
• Economies of scale:
• Remain a low cost mode.
• Strengthened by containerization
Tons Shipped by Maritime Transportation, 1981-2000 (in
millions)

6000
Other
5000 Grain
Ore/coal/minerals
4000 Oil

3000

2000

1000

0
4. Water Transport

■ Technical innovations
• Size:
• Expresses type as well as capacity.
• Each time the size of a ship is doubled, its capacity is cubed.
• The largest tankers (ULCC) are around 500,000 dwt
• The largest dry bulk carriers are around 350,000 dwt.
• Remaining constraints in ship size are the capacity of ports and canals.
• Speed
• Average speed of ships is about 15 knots (1 knot = 1 marine mile = 1,853
meters), which is 28 km per hour.
• A ship can travel about 575 km per day.
• Recent ships can travel at speeds between 25 to 30 knots (45 to 55 km
per hour).
• Reaching higher maritime speeds remains a challenge which is
excessively costly to overcome.
4. Water Transport

• Specialization of ships:
• General cargo ships, tankers, grain carriers, barges, mineral carriers, bulk
carriers, methane carriers and container ships.
• Ship design:
• The hulls are the result of considerable efforts to minimize energy
consumption, construction costs and improve safety.
• A ship can take between 4 months (container and crude carriers) and 1
year to build (cruise ship).
• Automation:
• Self-unloading ships
• Computer assisted navigation (crew needs are reduced and safety is
increased) and global positioning systems.
• Smaller crews being required to operate larger ships.
4. Water Transport

■ Flags of convenience
• 46% of the ships and about 62% of the global tonnage (1998).
• Regulation:
• Under maritime law, the owner is bound to the rules and regulations of the
country of registration.
• Registry costs:
• Registry costs are on average between 30 to 50% lower than those of
North America and Western Europe.
• Operating costs:
• From 12 to 27% lower than traditional registry fleets.
• Savings are coming from lower manning expenses.
• Lower standards in terms of salary and benefits.
Tonnage by Country of Registry, 2003

China Tanker
Hong Kong Dry Bulk
Norway (NIS) Container
Other
Singapore
Cyprus
Malta
Bahamas
Greece
Liberia
Panama

0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000 140,000 160,000 180,000 200,000