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This article examines such port competitiveness from the perspective of port efficiency and supply chains. Specifically, studies are examined that investigate port competitiveness from the traditional perspective and from the chain perspective. In doing so, methodological problems of the literature in investigating port competitiveness are deduced.

The 2016 opening of an expanded Panama Canal will allow for Post-Panamax containerships up to 12 500 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) in size to transit the Panama Canal. In response, some US East...

A maritime transport chain is a network over which carriers, ports and shippers are involved in the movement of cargo. This paper investigates the effects of carrier chain profit, port chain throughput and shipper chain logistics cost on the maritime transport chain choice by carriers, ports and shippers, respectively. The paper concludes that: (1) a carrier's (water and land) chain profit has positive direct and positive indirect effects on the carrier's choice of a maritime transport chain, (2) a port's chain throughput has positive direct and positive indirect effects on the port's choice of a maritime transport chain, and (3) a shipper's chain logistics cost has negative direct and negative indirect effects on the shipper's choice of a maritime transport chain.

A maritime transport chain is a network over which carriers, ports and shippers are involved in the movement of cargo. This paper formally deduces that the port choice literature is included in the maritime transport chain choice literature. Specifically, it demonstrates that determinants of the port choice by shipping lines and shippers found in the literature and determinants of shipping line and shipper choice by ports are also determinants of maritime transport chain choice. Further, a maritime transport chain is formalized as an equilibrium model. Existence and uniqueness results for the proposed maritime transport chain model are derived.

The accumulation and repositioning of empty containers have become acute problems for container ports and are expected to intensify in the future given the expected growth in trade imbalances among trading nations. These problems are major costs and operational challenges for container ports. More accurate forecasting of volumes of port empty containers will enable container ports to develop more cost efficient plans for the repositioning of empty containers. This paper compares the Tioga Group, United Nations and Winters method (utilizing empty container volumes of three U.S. container ports) in forecasting volumes of port empty containers. The Winters method is found to provide more accurate forecasts of volumes of port empty containers than the Tioga Group and United Nations methods.

This study investigates determinants of the probability that an individual onboard a ship of a given shipping line will be injured (given that the ship is not involved in an accident). A Probit regression statistical model is used to investigate such determinants when ships are in port and on given types of containerships. Probit estimation results suggest that an individual is less likely to be injured in port onboard a ship that is larger in size and underway, but more likely to be injured if involved in a fall. An individual is less likely to be injured onboard a containership with AMO union officers if it is larger in size and during the daytime. An individual is less likely to be injured onboard a containership with MEBA and MMP union officers if it is larger in size, when the weather is clear and when he/she is wearing steel-toed safety boots.

This study investigates determinants of the property damage and injury severities of cruise vessel accidents. Detailed data of individual cruise vessel accidents for the period 1991-2001 that were investigated by the US Coast Guard were used to estimate cruise vessel accident property damage and injury severity equations. The estimation results suggest that cruise vessel damage cost per vessel gross ton is greater for: allision, collision, equipment-failure, explosion, fire, flooding, and grounding cruise vessel accidents than for other types of accidents and a human cause. The accident injury severity is greater for ocean cruise than for inland waterway and harbor/dinner cruise vessel accidents and a human cause. The unit damage cost for explosion accidents is greater than that for other types of accidents by $207 per vessel gross ton. If the accident is caused by a human, rather than an environmental or vessel factor, the probabilities of non-fatal and fatal injuries increase.

I investigate the earnings differentials among union and nonunion seafarers, across seafarer occupations, and with respective to other transport operatives. The empirical results suggest that the union and nonunion weekly earnings of captains/mates are comparable, and the union earnings gap for sailors/deckhands is positive. The union (nonunion) weekly earnings of captains/mates are 14.7 (30.5) percent greater than those of sailors/deckhands; the union weekly earnings of captains/mates (sailors/deckhands) are 12.6% greater (9.5% less) than those of truck drivers; and the nonunion weekly earnings of captains/mates (sailors/deckhands) are 33.0% greater (6.2% less) than those of truck drivers. The sailor/deckhand and truck driver earnings differentials are contrary to the general belief that the earnings of truck drivers are less than those of other operative occupations involved in transporting intermodal cargo.

How should port dredging be financed, by a tax or user fee? The U.S. tax and proposed Clinton Administration national user fee programs for financing port dredging costs are reviewed. Rather than the former, a port-specific user dredging fee is proposed that satisfies the criteria: 1) the revenue from the fees should cover the dredging costs – no more, no less, 2) all vessels of the same type and size that use a given dredged waterway should pay the same fee and 3) the fee for a given type and size of vessel should not exceed its standalone dredging cost, thereby promoting cost efficiency in dredging. Further, theoretical support is provided for non-users who benefit from dredged waterways and vessel cargo to be involved in the financing of port dredging costs.

The security incident cycle of ports consists of four phases: prevention, detection, response and recovery. There have been significant improvements in securing (prevention and detection) ports since the events of September 11, 2001, but little investigation of the response to and recover from a security incident once it has occurred. This paper provides a study of the security incident cycle of a port by investigating how ports and governments have addressed prevention and detection of and response to and recovery from port security incidents. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2006) 8, 267–286. doi:10.1057/palgrave.mel.9100159

This study investigates the probabilities of vessel safety and pollution inspections by type of vessel by the US Coast Guard based upon individual vessel inspections for the years 1992–2001. Probit estimates of vessel safety (versus pollution) inspection equations suggest that fishing, passenger, recreation and tug boats are less (more) likely to be inspected for safety (pollution), whereas tank barges and US flag vessels are more (less) likely to be inspected for safety (pollution). Also, vessel safety and pollution inspection probabilities by vessel type vary by Coast Guard district and time. The probability of a US flag vessel being inspected for safety has increased over the time period of the study. The results bring into question the effectiveness of the Coast Guard in reducing the oil-spill pollution of tank barges and improving the safety of fishing boats. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2005) 7, 156–172. doi:10.1057/palgrave.mel.9100127

We investigate the effects of two public transit policies, subsidization and privatization, on the wages of taxi drivers. In theory, transit operating subsidies benefit transit firms at the expense of the taxi industry and its employees. By contrast, the privatization policy of contractingout transit service to lower cost private providers is potentially beneficial to taxi firms and their drivers. Estimated wage equations confirm that transit operating subsidies have negatively affected taxi driver wages even as they have bolstered transit drivers’ wages. Transit privatization has had the predicted positive effect on taxi driver wages, all else held constant. These results suggest that a more accurate assessment of the effect of transit operating subsidies on labor costs must encompass their net effects on the labor costs of the entire urban transportation sector, not just the public transit industry.

This paper investigates determinants of crew and passenger injuries in passenger vessel accidents. Crew and passenger injury equations are estimated for ferry, ocean cruise, and river cruise vessel accidents, utilizing detailed data of individual vessel accidents that were investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard during the time period 2001–2008. The estimation results provide empirical evidence (for the first time in the literature) that crew injuries are determinants of passenger injuries in passenger vessel accidents.

This paper investigates whether there are accident vessel damage cost differentials among container, tanker and bulk vessels. Tobit estimates of accident vessel damage cost equations suggest that vessel damage cost differentials exist for container versus bulk and tanker versus bulk vessel accidents, but not for container versus tanker vessel accidents. The vessel damage cost per vessel gross ton of a container (tanker) accident is $33.37 ($18.37) less than that of a bulk accident, all else held constant. The damage cost differentials are associated with fire/explosion accidents and human and environmental accident causes. The accident vessel damage cost differentials found in this paper may be compared with vessel hull insurance rates for investigating whether the latter reflect the former. Also, such comparisons may reveal whether there is cross-subsidisation among vessel hull insurance payees.International Journal of Maritime Economics (2002) 4, 307–322. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.ijme.9100049

Conclusion Railroad and port unions have dealt in various ways with technological change — from anticipating its possibility through restrictive work rules to mitigating its effects through employment — and income-protection agreements to attempting to participate in its benefits in the form of supplementary compensation. Collectively these policies imposed great costs on railroads and ports.

Problem : Commercial fishing is one of the least safe occupations. Method : The researchers develop a fishing vessel accident probability model for fishing areas off the northeastern United States using logit regression and daily data from 1981 to 1993. Results : The results indicate that fishing vessel accident probability declined over the study period. Higher wind speed is associated with greater accident probability. Medium-size vessels have the highest accident probability, while small vessels have the lowest. Within the study region, accident probability is lower in the southwestern section than in the northeastern section. Accidents are likely to occur closer to shore than offshore. Accident probability is lowest in spring. Impact on Industry : The probability model is an important building block in development and quantitative assessment of management mechanisms related to safety in the commercial fishing industry.

This article investigates the wage differentials of similar occupations in three for-hire transportation carrier industries, railroad, truck and motor bus, under regulation and deregulation. The estimation results indicate that the union wage gaps among all occupations have widened under deregulation. Specifically, the union wages of railroad occupations have increased relative to those of truck drivers and the union wages of truck drivers have increased relative to those of motor bus drivers. Further, wage gaps for all occupations for this period are greater among nonunion than among union workers. (JEL L92) I. INTRODUCTION Economic regulation of U.S. transportation carrier industries has been classified into three distinct eras: the monopoly regulatory era, the competition regulatory era, and the regulatory reform era, beginning in the late 1800s, the 1930s, and the 1970s (Talley, 1983). These eras addressed carrier abuses, destructive intramodal and intermodal competition, and the negative impacts of regulation, respectively. The 1887 Interstate Commerce Act sought to prevent monopolistic abuses and limit discriminatory practices of railroads. The Motor Carrier Act of 1935 of the competition regulatory era placed motor carriers (freight and passenger) under federal regulation. By the 1970s advocates for federal regulatory reform argued that economic regulation protected inefficient carriers, promoted high rates and fares, and in general fostered an inefficient allocation of resources. Subsequently, a number of deregulation (or regulatory reform) acts were passed, including the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, and the Bus Regulatory Reform Act of 1982. Though shippers and passengers have generally benefited from transportation deregulation, paying lower real rates and fares, the impact on carrier labor earnings has been negative. For example, the real weekly wages of union railroad engineers have declined 11.7% (Talley and Schwarz-Miller, 1998); the real hourly wages of union and nonunion for-hire truck carrier drivers have declined 23% and 10% (Hirsch and Macpherson, 1998); and the real hourly wages of both union and nonunion for-hire motor bus carrier drivers have declined 17% (Schwarz-Miller and Talley, 1994). The impact of deregulation, however, on the relative labor earnings of transportation carrier industries is unknown. Specifically, have wage differentials changed from those of the regulation period? If so, have these differentials widened (narrowed) under deregulation, thereby increasing (decreasing) the gap in the labor earnings of one industry relative to those of another? Do the changes in wage differentials differ for union and nonunion labor ? The purpose of this article is to investigate occupational wage differentials among transportation industries under regulation and deregulation. As intermodal competition intensifies, such information is expected to play a more important role in industry wage negotiations. Wage differentials of similar occupations in three for-hire carrier industries under regulation and deregulation are estimated. The three industries are the railroad, truck, and motor bus industries, and the occupations include railroad engineers, conductors, and brakemen/switchmen; truck drivers; and motor bus drivers. The estimation results indicate that the union wages of railroad occupations have increased relative to those of truck drivers and the union wages of truck drivers have increased relative to those of motor bus drivers during the postderegulation period. Further, wage gaps for all occupations for this period are greater among nonunion than among union workers. The remainder of this article is structured as follows: section II discusses railroad, truck, and motor bus for-hire carrier industries, and in particular their labor, under regulation and deregulation. …

Problem: Commercial fishing is one of the least safe occupations. This study investigates determinants of vessel total losses and number of fatal and nonfatal crew injuries resulting from commercial fishing vessel accidents. Method: An injury and vessel damage accident model is developed. Total vessel loss and crew injury models are estimated using probit and negative binomial regressions, respectively, and a unique micro data set of commercial fishing vessel accidents. Results: Estimation results indicate that the probability of a total loss is the greatest for a capsizing, followed by a sinking accident. Fire/explosions and capsizings are expected to incur the greatest number of crew fatalities — 3.5 and 3.8 for every 100 such accidents. For every 100 collisions, 2.1 nonfatal crew injuries are expected. The probability of a total loss and the expected number of crew fatalities vary inversely with the price of fish catches. Discussion: We discuss relevant issues related to fishing vessel safety management and regulation. Important vessel safety measures are summarized. Summary: Policy implications: (a) policies that reduce capsizings and sinkings will be effective in reducing fishing vessel accident total losses; (b) policies that reduce fire/explosions and capsizings (collisions) will be effective in reducing fatal (nonfatal) injuries. Impact on Industry: Policymakers should find the results of this study useful in developing regulation and enforcement mechanisms for reducing fishing vessel injuries and total losses.

This article uses survey data to determine motivations and impediments to collaboration (i.e., contracting, merger/consolidation, and strategic alliance) among public transit systems in the United States. The results suggest that transit systems are more likely to contract out passenger service if they are involved in the initiation of the collaboration effort and if they are motivated by the possibility of increased resources and by government pressure. The impediments to contracting include resistance from other agencies and government funding agency restrictions. Mergers are motivated by cost savings and government initiatives (or pressure). Strategic alliances are motivated by the promise of increased service effectiveness but not so much by service quality, cost savings, or increased resources. An impediment to the formation of strategic alliances is size of required capital investment (cost of vehicles, equipment, and facilities). The article also examines the policy implications of these results.

Over 40 years ago Gary Becker (1957) argued that competition helps mitigate the ability of firms to engage in wage and employment discrimination. Deregulated transportation industries, in particular, provide fertile ground to test the Becker hypothesis. The increase in competition from deregulation should make it increasingly costly for employers to exercise discriminatory preferences. Several studies of the deregulated trucking industry provide support for this hypothesis (Nancy L. Rose, 1987; Peoples and Lisa Saunders, 1993; John S. Heywood and Peoples, 1994). This study also utilizes information on transportation industries to test the Becker hypothesis. It differs from the literature in that one of the transportation industries examined is privatized.1 At question is whether the Becker hypothesis also holds for a publicly owned transportation industry in a privatized environment. This question is addressed by investigating privatization's effect on black-white earnings differentials of public-transit bus drivers. These results are then compared with deregulation's effect on black-white earnings differentials of private for-hire truck drivers. Such a comparison allows for analyzing differences in differential earnings for comparable occupations in privatization and deregulation regimes. I. Transportation Industries

Through the 1950s, ocean transport of general (dry non-bulk) cargo used break-bulk (i.e., on pallet) methods: pallets were moved, generally one at a time, onto a truck or rail car that carried them from the factory or warehouse to the docks. There each pallet was unloaded and hoisted, by cargo net and crane, off the dock and onto the ship. Once the pallet was in the ship's hole, it had to be positioned precisely and braced to protect it from damage during the ocean crossing. This process was then reversed at the other end of the voyage, making the ocean transport of general cargo a slow, labor-intensive, and expensive process. All of this began to change in 1955. Malcolm McLean, believing that individual pieces of cargo needed to be handled only twice-at their origin when stored in a standardized container box and at their destination when unloaded-purchased a small tanker company, renamed it Sea-Land, and adapted its ships to transport truck trailers. The first voyage, to Puerto Rico, of a Sea-Land containership began in Newark, New Jersey, USA, April 26, 1956. Confrontations with shipping lines, railroads, and unions, however, delayed the company's maiden international voyage to Rotterdam until 1966. The containerization of international trade had begun. In the years that followed, standardized containers were constructed, generally twenty or forty feet long without wheels, having locking mechanisms at each corner that could be secured to a truck chassis, a rail car, a crane, or other containers inside a ship's hole or on its deck. The use of standardized containers also meant that intermodalism of international trade, the movement of cargo from an origin in one

This study investigates determinants of the oil spillage, vessel damage, and other-property damage costs of U.S. inland waterway tank barge accidents and their relationships. The tobit estimation of a three-equation recursive model suggests that type of accident, cause of accident, operating conditions, vessel characteristics, and regulation are determinants. Collision accidents incur the largest oil spillage and vessel damage costs, whereas fire/explosion accidents incur the largest other-property damage costs. A dollar of vessel damage cost increases other-property damage cost by $0.51, whereas a dollar of oil spillage increases this cost by $9.13. An important result for formulating tank barge accident cost-reduction policies is that a given determinant might cause an increase in one damage cost but reduce another.International Journal of Maritime Economics (2000) 2, 217–234; doi:10.1057/ijme.2000.18

Risk compensation effects occur when changes in risk-related factors lead to offsetting or reinforcing behaviors. An empirical analysis of recreational boating accidents between 1989 and 1993 suggests that compensating behavior can be offsetting or reinforcing, depending upon the individual safety behavior through which the compensating effect occurs, and can occur through the safety behavior of both the operator and passenger. Cumulative experience and formal training have compensation effects that depend upon the adjustment margin. An implication from this is the need for additional research on identifying adjustment margins through which individuals compensate. This information will assist policy makers whose objectives are to implement regulatory policies that most effectively produce safety enhancing behaviours.

This study investigates determinants of the seaworthiness of ships involved in accidents, utilizing detailed data of individual tanker, container and bulk ship (U.S. and foreign) accidents investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard. Ordered probit estimation results suggest that ship accident seaworthiness: 1) increases with ship size; 2) is greater if the ship is classified by the American Bureau of Shipping and manned by a licensed operator; and 3) is less for a tanker ship, for multi-ship accidents, at higher winds, if the weather is foggy, and for collision, fire/explosion and material/equipment failure accidents than for groundings. Estimated marginal ship accident seaworthiness probabilities suggest that policies that reduce fire/explosion and material/equipment failure accidents and increase the manning of ships by licensed operators are likely to be efficacious in improving ship accident seaworthiness.International Journal of Maritime Economics (1999) 1, 1–14; doi:10.1057/ijme.1999.9

This paper examines the earnings of public transit bus drivers for both the pre-Reagan and Reagan-Bush eras using Current Population Survey data. The findings show that union drivers were consistently paid a significant wage premium over nonunion drivers, a premium which also exceeded that for unionized private nontransport operatives — suggesting that special institutional features of the public transit industry have collectively conferred market power on unionized public transit workers. During the Reagan years, the earnings of public transit drivers, union and nonunion alike, rose relative to those of private and public nontransport operatives in spite of federally-spearheaded cost containment policies. In 1990, these earnings fell relative to those of private and public nontransport operatives, suggesting that the effects of these policies may be beginning to be felt.

This paper investigates the wage differentials of intermodal transportation carriers and ports under carrier economic regulation and deregulation. The estimation results suggest that the union wages of truck drivers, rail engineers and port dockworkers were comparable in the regulation period; in the deregulation period the union wages of truck drivers and rail engineers declined relative to those of dockworkers. The wage differential estimates indicate negative union hourly wage gaps for truck drivers and rail engineers of 22.7% and 6.9%, respectively, versus dockworkers. These results reflect the increase (decrease) in the relative bargaining power of dockworkers (truck drivers and rail engineers) in the deregulation period.

Econometric transportation safety research heretofore has focused on the likelihood of the occurrence of "safety related events" (event probability), e.g., investigating determinants of accident rates.' However, the risk of travel to the passenger (i.e., the probability of sustaining injury or death) not only has the aspect of event probability but also the aspect of severity conditional probability-the severity of the event given that it has occurred.2 Hence, an alternative (to event probability) for investigating the risk of travel is to focus on the severity of "safety related events." Since the severity of a "safety related event" is conditioned upon the occurrence of the event, the event and severity conditional probabilities of "safety related events" are expected to have common determinants.

ARELATIONSHIP OF PILOT EXPERIENCE, SAFETY EQUIPMENT, AND JET VS. COMMUTER SERVICE TO SEVERITY OF DAMAGE, USING 1983-86 NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD DATA.

During the 1960's, regional councils of government sprung up throughout the United States. The councils were formed in response to Federal insistance that review agencies certify that projects carried out under Federal grants were in accordance with orderly regional development. For the most part, these councils or planning districts have been given the authority to stop the implementation of the plans of member governments which do not conform to their regional development guide, but they cannot provide governmental services in the district.

Dajani, Egan, and McElroy (DEM) in this joural (pp 49-60, July 1975) attempted to determine the redistributive impact (i.e., the net incidence of benefits and costs) of the new Atlanta transit system to be operated by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA). Based upon a sample of eight origin zones, DEM conclude that there appears to be no relationship between net benefits from MARTA and income per family but a relationship between net benefits and proximity to the transit station. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the DEM made several methodological errors in measuring benefits and costs of MARTA and hence their conclusions are questionable. Furthermore, the DEM benefit-cost model will be presented in a graphical framework. Because of the many factors that enter into the determination of benefits and costs or urban transit, the possibility of not considering or being inconsistent in considering a relevant factor becomes highly probable. The graphical model presented in this paper was found to be extremely useful in understanding the DEM benefit-cost model and in discovering its errors. A similar model may also be found useful by future researchers in avoiding methodological errors in the measurement of benefits and costs ofmore » urban transit.« less