Abstract

over the world there are several countries where airships are being used for military and civilian purposes. The rebirth of this mean of transportation, capable of easily overcoming some deficiencies of the conventional ones, brings medium and long term economic benefits. In addition, they offer different services at lower costs, and they also may stimulate new commercial and industrial activities and even new transactional routes. The background of airship technology comes from the XVIII century. Since then, all those years were of scientific and empirical knowledge. Now, they form the basis for a sustainable future in emerging technologies, making the return of airships possible. This revived interest in airship technology brings a multitude of technical concepts resulting from interdisciplinary research. Consequently, the state of art of airships presents new research which paves the way for the reappearance of renewed horizons with regards to the use of airships. Companies are focused on the research, development and testing of new airship concepts and designs too. Nowadays, airships are being studied for commercial transport in different parts of the globe, from Canada, Brazil, Peru, to Australia. India, for example, has studies about the connection to remote areas with poor surface infrastructure which only can be reached by air or walking. This way, it's expected that airships will become a competitive mean of transport to link areas served by deficient transport infrastructures. Taking the principles of sustainable development of air transport, airships are the most environment-friendly vehicles with lower fuel consumption and with higher endurance. Therefore, as a result, they are paving the way for new markets. This work examines these technological improvements and the economic feasibility of the use of airships in certain market niches. Mainly, this work makes use of a study concerning the viability of the use of airships within Portuguese Tourism and Urban Logistic activity sectors. This paper is organized as follows: firstly, state of the art reviews about airships technological characteristics: operational constraints, operation scenarios, and international and national legislation. Secondly, improvement of two case studies within the Portuguese territory (touristic flights and urban logistic activity): operational parameters evaluation and operating cost estimation. And thirdly, some insights and challenges of research that is still in progress.

Abstract

This paper studies how airports affect economic growth in US metropolitan areas. The main finding is that airport size has a positive effect on local employment, with an elasticity of 0.04. The effect appears to be mostly due to a positive effect on services employment and to be concentrated in parts of the metropolitan area nearer the airport. To further understand how an airport affects the local economy, the effects on several other variables are estimated. Airport size is found to have positive effects on the number of firms, the population size, the rate of employment, and GDP in the local area. The magnitudes of the effects on population and employment suggest that airport expansion creates jobs for both existing residents and migrants to the area. The estimation uses a novel technique to identify the effects of airport infrastructure. It applies instruments for changes in airport size that are calculated from overall changes in air traffic in a set of categories: the airlines, the types of aircraft, or the distances flown. The technique could be adapted to study the effects of other types of infrastructure.

Abstract

"jats:p"Smart City as a concept presupposes using new information and communication technologies in order to improve the quality of life within a particular geographic area. There are six different pillars in the frame of this concept and their one purpose is to achieve better efficiency of city operations. Smart mobility and transport are some of them. The efforts of traditional cities to become smart are not easily and quickly achievable. Numerous traffic solutions have already been implemented in different cities all over the world that make the ‘jump’ from traditional city to smart city. This paper provides an overview of the ‘smart’ transport solutions that have been implemented in the city of Skopje as a traditional city, which is on its way to becoming a smart city."/jats:p" "jats:p"The presented smart solutions are related to traffic management and control area and are aimed at alleviating traffic problems. The focus is on non-motorized solutions, e-vehicles, adaptive traffic control systems and public transport solutions. Several aims have been set in this paper – to promote the achievements of the municipality of Skopje aimed at transforming Skopje into a smart city in a transport area; to present its functionality, and to point out the disadvantages related to law regulations and the interconnection of all stakeholders involved. Finally, the idea is to provide a starting point for future research and to recommend future steps in this direction in the city of Skopje. Document type: Article