Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa's air transport, though low in overall volume when compared to other regions in the world, has experienced significant growth in the last decade, both in international and domestic traffic. The sector, in part because of its relatively small size, still faces the challenges of high concentration in services and lack of competition, with only a few dominant airlines providing international services within the continent. In addition, Africa faces challenges in safety oversight, as well as having many smaller non-viable state-owned carriers. Document type: Book

Abstract

In the literature many definitions of megacities and mega-regions are proposed (Urena et al., 2009; Pagliara et al., 2011). For example, Hall (2009) defines a mega city region as a ?series of cities physically separated but functionally networked clustered around one or more larger central cities and are connected with dense flows of people and information using important transport infrastructures?. Transport infrastructures and services are fundamental either for the emergence or the proper functioning of mega cities and regions. High Speed Rail systems are definitely today considered as important infrastructures. By impacting strongly on accessibility patterns, they have revolutionized users? life style together with their mobility behavior thanks to their power of shrinking spaces and shaping places. This contribution is based on the recognition that commuting flows are not enough to justify the formation of a megacity or a mega-region. Even if they can contribute to it, they don?t justify the development of a megapolis. A theoretical model should be specified in order to explain the mechanisms through which metro areas integrate into mega-regions and to understand what is the real role of HSR systems as a variable of this model. This paper attempts to fill this gap, present in the literature, and identify some European corridors having high potential for mega-region formation as supported by High Speed Rail. Examples can be found in France, in Spain and in Italy as well. To achieve this objective, this paper will rely on a thorough literature review aimed at the identification of the possible causal relations between changes in accessibility induced by HSR and the emergence of megacities and megaregions. Moreover a first attempt of specifying the model is proposed. Indeed regression models are defined, where the dependent variables are described in terms of commuting flows, travel time and travel cost of the competing transport modes between metro areas, variables connected with HSR, i.e. comfort, speed, low environmental impact, etc. will be considered as well. Other factors influencing the formation of megacities and megaregions will be introduced and tested. Among them economic variables like the number of jobs, the GDP, etc. Further perspectives should consider that this construct should be tested and synthesized in mathematical terms and then calibrated with the collection of real data.

Abstract

he aim of this P is to propose a state-of-the-art concerning the interaction between High-Speed Rail systems and the tourism market, in order to identify the possible best practices aiming to enhance the value of the tourist activities. This question arises because there are many projects of High-Speed Rail and others are ongoing, whose economic justification is based on the benefits deriving from them. In November 2013 there were 21.472 km of High Speed Railways (i.e., whose speed is greater than 250 km / h) in the world, 13964 km were under construction and 16347 km were scheduled by 2025. In 2025, 51784 km should be operational (UIC 2013), as in Germany, Belgium, Brazil, China, the United States, France, Iran, Morocco, and Portugal. Because of increase in accessibility, which the territories served benefit, the actors involved expect a dynamic economy, in general, and of the tourism in particular. Although expectations are important in France as abroad, a literature review of studies carried out ex-post shows that the effects are not systematic. Indeed, there is not a systematic dynamism because of the implementation of the High-Speed service. More specifically, we show that different types of tourism are variously impacted by High-Speed Rail service. Urban and business tourism are the most impacted ones. Specifically, we show the importance of the prior existence of famous cities. These last ones must offer a basket of tourist products and services that benefit a good accessibility from being served by a High Speed Rail station. But it can be noted also that, if the high speed allows, in some circumstances, the increase in the number of tourists, a decrease of stay is also possible. Moreover, as the number of cities served by High Speed Rail increases, High Speed Rail can be itself a differentiation asset to develop tourism market. The role of high speed should also be related to accessibility, understood both as attractiveness of the destination such as coordination of the actors in order to propose a coordinated and renewed supply.

Abstract

The 'backhaul problem' is characterized by an imbalance in transport flows between locations. This problem is usually studied in a perfectly competitive framework, which essentially predicts that when the imbalance is sufficiently large, the freight price of transport from low demand regions to high demand regions, the so-called backhaul price, drops to zero. This result is inconsistent with empirical observations. In this paper, we develop a matching model to address this inconsistency. We argue that market friction, through search imperfections due to lack of information by carriers on the (future) demand for transport by customers, may play an important role in the determination of backhaul prices. We demonstrate that carriers are at least compensated for the time they search for customers, so the backhaul price is in general positive. The matching model is numerically applied to the inland navigation shipping market in the Rhine river area in Western-Europe. We also analyse the effects of increases in transport costs on transport flows and backhaul prices, e.g. due to climate changes.