This paper is one of two companion papers which survey price elasticities of transport demand. In addition to reviewing empirical elasticity estimates for both freight and passenger demand, this paper also deals with theoretical and empirical issues in estimating transport demand elasticities. The second survey, by Dr. Philip Goodwin, is primarily concerned with empirical estimates of demand elasticities of public traansit system and automobile usage. The origins of motivations of these two papers were different. As was the coverage and sources used. The two papers complemented each other and are therefore published together with a pooled bibliography.

Concepts of price elasticities of transport demand and recent empirical estimates: an interpretative survey. in: urban transport

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) is a data analysis technique used in a great variety of applications such as text mining, image processing, hyperspectral data analysis, computational biology, and clustering. In this letter, we consider two well-known algorithms designed to solve NMF problems: the multiplicative updates of Lee and Seung and the hierarchical alternating least squares of Cichocki et al. We propose a simple way to significantly accelerate these schemes, based on a careful analysis of the computational cost needed at each iteration, while preserving their convergence properties. This acceleration technique can also be applied to other algorithms, which we illustrate on the projected gradient method of Lin. The efficiency of the accelerated algorithms is empirically demonstrated on image and text data sets and compares favorably with a state-of-the-art alternating nonnegative least squares algorithm.

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Accelerated multiplicative updates and hierarchical als algorithms for nonnegative matrix factorization

This paper focuses on the response of port authorities to the changing market environment in which they operate. It documents the changes taking place in the relationships between port authorities and terminal management companies and considers the strategic issues faced by these groups and other port interests. In particular, it investigates the potential conflicts of interest for a port authority in matters related to the level of competition amongst terminals within a port and the amount of competition amongst ports.

Co-Operation and Competition in International Container Transport Strategies for Ports

Multilateral resistance to migration

This paper surveys the extant research in the field of ocean container transport. A wide range of issues is discussed including strategic planning, tactical planning and operations management issues, which are categorized into six research areas. The relationships between these research areas are discussed and the relevant literature is reviewed. Representative models are selected or modified to provide a flavour of their functions and application context, and used to explain current shipping practices. Future research opportunities bearing in mind the emerging phenomena in the field are discussed. The main purpose is to raise awareness and encourage more research into and application of operations management techniques and tools in container transport chains.

Ocean container transport in global supply chains: Overview and research opportunities

The performance of the transport chain is important for the efficiency and competitiveness of an economy. In the context of port competition, there has been an increasing cooperation between firms involved in the intermodal transport chain including seaport services. This paper examines the economic incentives and welfare implications to the integration of port activities with inland transport services under inter-ports competition. Although ports find it advantageous to engage in such integration process it may be detrimental to welfare, since shippers’ aggregate surplus decreases – noting that farther away users benefit at the expense of those closer to the ports. Several scenarios not leading to such welfare decrease are identified: asymmetries in port capacities, government regulation and efficiency gains. These latter results provide support to policies that favor integration processes of transport services.

The impact on port competition of the integration of port and inland transport services

A key recent theme in maritime freight transport is the involvement of shipping lines in terminal management. Such investments are costly but allow liners to provide better service. Most of these new terminals are dedicated terminals but some are non-exclusive and let rivals access them for a fee. In this paper, we show that a shipping line that builds its own terminal finds it strategically profitable i) to continue routing part of its cargo through the open port facilities, and ii) to keep its terminal non-exclusive. In this way, the liner investor pushes part of the rival's freight from the open to the new terminal. Besides, under non-exclusivities, the shipping lines offer a wider variety of services, total freight increases and the resulting equilibrium fares are higher than with a dedicated terminal.

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Vertical integration and exclusivities in maritime freight transport

This paper models competition for freight transport between the road and maritime sectors. Operators offer differentiated services and there are economies of scale in the oligopolistic shipping line sector. Two types of integration between shipping lines are considered: in one of them the liners production processes remain separate (like in an alliance); in another economies of scale are further exploited. Typically maritime freight post-merger goes down. However, it may increase if the merger exploits further economies of scale, they are important and transport services are sufficiently differentiated. An empirical application to the routes Valencia–Antwerp and Valencia–Genoa is undertaken to confirm the predictions of the model. It is shown that, for both types of merger, user surplus increases when transport services are weakly differentiated and economies of scale are sufficiently small. These conditions also guarantee that a merger is socially beneficial.

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Pedro Cantos-Sánchez

Papers

The impact on port competition of the integration of port and inland transport services

Vertical integration and exclusivities in maritime freight transport

Competition and horizontal integration in maritime freight transport

Rail access charges and internal competition in high speed trains

A model of internal and external competition in a High Speed Rail line