European Transport / Trasporti Europei (2003) 24/IX

The paper reports on a conjoint analysis experiment aimed at helping town administrators to make efficient, distributionally- aware and politically acceptable decisions on town centres' traffic restrictions. An adaptive conjoint exercise had been administered to a small group of Balloon 's citizens, a small town of Veneto, an Italian region. A commercial software (ACA) had been used to perform the interviews. ACA provides individual utility estimates allowing the analyst to perform the desired segmentation analysis. Notwithstanding the sample size, the experiment provided plausible and informative results. Utilities, computed both as average results and by sample segments, show the strong concern across all sample segments for pollution (environmental quality) and the desire for improved public transport services (increased bus frequency). On average there is a preference for flexible traffic restrictions and moderate hourly parking fees.

In academic literature, only limited research has been undertaken in exploring the value creation of B2B (Business-to-Business) e-Marketplace models in the aviation industry. The aim of this publication is a theoretical analysis to explore whether or not B2B e-Marketplaces can make a contribution to the achievement of competitive advantage in procurement in the aviation industry. The research focuses on the potential of B2B e-Marketplaces in terms of improving an air line 's competitiveness in its procurement value chain and discusses empirical results from a survey among international e-Marketplace / portal operators.

This paper aims to describe an issue of great concern to transportation firms in dealing with the distribution of goods: the management of empty containers. Indeed, freight carriers must timely dispatch empty containers of various types in anticipation of forecasted customer demands and reposition other containers in order to face unbalanced cargo volumes between the different regions they served. Terminal operators and leasing companies are also involved in this problem. Understanding empty flows generation is quite important because this phenomenon will never be eliminated completely, but only mitigated with efficient tools such as the optimisation methods of Operation Research. Interesting research trends are also mentioned in order to improve the state-of-the-art in this issue.

Significant increase in traffic demand at the end of the 20th century and the increasing anthropogenic environmental pollution have resulted in the need to introduce the telematics-supported intelligent transport systems in all the traffic branches. The work presents the development and the basic characteristics of transport systems managed by information and communication technologies. It also gives an overview and explanation of the operation of some of the numerous telematic systems in traffic, and a detailed presentation of the telematics-controlled public transport of the city of Helsinki. It also presents the possible development and advantages of implementing telematics in the transport along the river Danube through Austria.

This paper presents the procedure for building Belgrade transport model as a tool for the optimization of Belgrade transport system development. City Council of Belgrade financed the Belgrade Transport Model (BeTraMod). It was a first experience of city government of Belgrade in developing huge data basis about transport system using software. This way defined model can be used by different users as official basis for calculations to respective authorities or local self-government organizations, whose activities are directly connected to planning, programming, management and building of transport system; basis of various research and scientific-research projects; basis for the appraisal process; basis for search of the optimal solutions of traffic regime; basis of intelligent transport systems in the portion of dynamic traffic control. Since BeTraMod is created it was already used for project documentation of three projects: pre-feasibility study and general project of lnner-city Ring Road, pre-feasibility study and general project of Light Rail Transport and feasibility study of Bypass road of Belgrade.

SCATTER tackles the issue of urban sprawl, in particular in the context of cities implementing new suburban public transport services. Urban sprawl is widespread in Europe: in a growing number of cities, population and employment in central areas is declining while increasing rapidly in suburban and peripheral areas and this induces a high level of car use and, usually, congestion on roads with access to city centres. To limit the damage caused by urban sprawl in terms of congestion, air pollution and energy consumption, many European cities are implementing (or planning to implement) suburban public transport services, such as heavy or light rail. But by improving accessibility, they create an incentive for a new wave of urban sprawl. Therefore, in parallel with these new public transport services, accompanying measures have to be elaborated and implemented, in order to prevent and mitigate the sprawl phenomenon. SCATTER is a project under the European Commission DG Research, "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development Programme" and is part of the LUTR projects cluster. The project comprises six case cities: Brussels, Stuttgart, Bristol, Helsinki, Rennes and Milan and has the final objective to provide recommendations and guidelines to European cities and design an "urban sprawl monitoring tool".

The paper is based on an extensive empirical analysis carried out on the role that maritime transport and ports play in a specific supply chain, i.e. that of the furniture sector in Italy. The sector is a relevant one for the Italian economy, since Italy detains the worldwide leadership in exports. After an analysis of the International scenario - in which the role of the Mediterranean region is highlighted - a four-steps methodology is employed for the Italian case study: first, on the basis of various data, the generation (production sites analysis), distribution (markets) and modal split of traffic flows are analyzed, both at aggregate and disaggregate levels. Then, the decision-making process is examined on the basis of a questionnaire-based technique, in which main modes and port choice criteria (path choices) are identified. Main results demonstrate a generally positive trend for maritime transport services. However, port-maritime competitiveness is limited to extra-continental markets, in which the US market plays a driving role. With some notable exceptions (the UK market), shipping services turn out to be largely less competitive than road services for intra-EU markets, both in terms of costs and transit time. In the main, it is found that the role of main competitiveness factors (cost and transit time) strictly depends on the pricing policies (e.g. FOB vs. DDP) which crucially influence the choice of ports.

The present condition of freight transport system, unbalanced strongly toward the road transport, with remarkable costs both in terms of environment impact and of safety, pushes a relaunching of the combined road-sea transport and so of the maritime way. The paper proposes a methodological approach, founded on theoretical models, for feasibility studies of new cabotage lines, useful to orient the sector operators in the identifying efficient and effective sabotage services. After a short recall to the problems concerning the sabotage, some transport supply models are illustrated for sea and road transport as alternative modes. As concerns the transport demand, an estimation procedure based on RP/SP surveys, is suggested. The proposed models are applied for a comparative analysis of the road, railway and maritime transport alternatives between two Italian regions, taking into consideration also two different charge units: lorry with tractor and lorry without tractor. The analysis is made both according to a MTO and a Maritime Operator. Some feasibility studies of new sabotage lines in the Mediterranean Sea are under widening. The research can turn out a valid tool to orient the sector operators and contribute to avoid failures such as some recent cases in the Mediterranean Europe.