Abstract

Would improvements in port performance increase trade in countries on the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans? Previous studies attempted to answer this question using ad hoc measures of port efficiency that do not control for the actual use of port assets or measures that can be very noisy. To avoid these problems, this paper builds a measure of economic efficiency based on the use of port inputs to deliver port output. Using data envelop analysis, it ranks countries on the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans in terms of their port efficiency, and assesses the effect of increased efficiency. It finds that becoming as efficient as the country with the most efficient port sector would reduce their average maritime transport costs by up to 14 percent and increase their exports by up to 2.2 percent. Document type: Book

Abstract

This report, a background note for the South Africa Systematic Country Diagnostic, documents public transport accessibility, focusing particularly on minibus taxis and on poor households, and describe the costs of commuting to work, using the 2013 National Household Travel Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa. It also explains how the minibus taxi industry works, based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2017 in the minibus taxi industry, and what this implies for costs and accessibility of minibuses to users. It analyzes publicly available data on fatal crashes and police data on violence to describes the risks to users of public transport from fatal crashes and also taxi violence. It also suggest some policy options to improve transport outcomes for the poor. Document type: Book

Abstract

Finnish government allowed in October 2013 operating high capacity vehicles (HCV) with a maximum weight limit of 76 t on Finnish roads. An analysis on how HCVs have affected the Finnish road freight transport sector is presented here based on a continuous time series data from 2013 to 2017. The analysis shows a significant increase in the average payload weight and a transition from 7-axle to 8- and 9-axle articulated vehicle combinations, which allow the higher weights. Truck mileage of 225 million km has been avoided from October 2013 until the end of 2017 and avoided mileage corresponded in 2017 to approximately 4% of total truck mileage in Finland. This equals around 126 million € cost savings in 2017 and 0.1 Mt of CO2 emissions reduction in road freight, even after taking into account that there has been some modal shift from rail to road. Document type: Article