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This chapter reviews the effects of air transport liberalization, and investigates the roles played by airport-airline vertical arrangements in liberalizing markets. Our investigation concludes that liberalization has led to substantial economic and traffic growth. Such positive outcomes are mainly due to increased competition and efficiency gains in the airline industry, and positive externalities to the overall economy. Liberalization allows airlines to optimize their networks, and thus may introduce substantial demand and financial uncertainty to airports. Vertical arrangements between airlines and airports may offer a wide range of benefits to the parties involved, yet such arrangements could also lead to airline entry barriers which reduce the effects of liberalization. Three approaches have been developed to model the effects of liberalization in complex market conditions, which include the analytical, econometric and computational network methods. These approaches should be selectively utilized in policy studies on liberalization.

Assessing air cargo strategy from an airport's perspective is relatively novel, and it seems little attention has been paid to this research area. This chapter will address this research gap by introducing an Airport Cargo Strategy Canvas, designed to help build cargo strategies for individual airports.

The Airport Cargo Strategy Canvas can be used as a tool to analyze and improve the air cargo strategy of an airport. The first part of this chapter will explain the different components of the Airport Cargo Strategy Canvas more in detail. The horizontal axis on the canvas differentiates between exogenous and endogenous drivers of airport competitiveness. The vertical axis distinguishes between the airport product and the airport market. The canvas also considers potential disruptors and principal shareholders' objectives. The different components of the canvas allow the analyst to dig into the main features and differentiators of respective airports. The canvas might also be helpful to structure and compare the strategic components and framework of their own or competitors' cargo strategies.

In the second part, the Airport Cargo Strategy Canvas was applied to Brussels Airport to analyze its cargo strategy. The canvas showed several strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats in its current cargo strategy. The completed canvas will let Brussels Airport's executives explore and analyze the strategy of their main competitors and peers' strategy and help them identify potential gaps in their strategies.

At the turn of the 20th-century railroad regulation was hotly debated in the United States. Railways were accused of abusing of their monopolistic position, in particular by discriminating rates. Public opinion’s pressure for tighter regulation led to the 1906 enactment of the Hepburn Act, which strengthened the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. American economists actively participated in the debate. While most of them sided with the pro-regulation camp, the best economic analysis came from those who used the logic of modern law and economics to demonstrate how most railroads’ practices, including rate discrimination, were simply rational, pro-efficiency behavior. However, as relatively unknown Chicago University economist Hugo R. Meyer would discover, proposing that logic in public events could at that time cost you your academic career.

B2B e‐hubs have been studied by IS researchers for close to a decade, and supply chain integration is a critical topic for supply chain management. However, the interface of the two topic areas has not received adequate attention from both researchers and practitioners. This paper aims to examine the impact of B2B e‐hubs on supply chain integration, with particular emphasis on information integration, B2B e‐hub architecture, and enabling technologies.

General system theory (GST) provides the theoretical framework. The main approach is theoretical analysis of information integration and development of e‐hub architecture. The paper discusses how information integration can be achieved through B2B e‐hubs and explores extensible markup language e‐hub architecture and technologies.

GST could provide the theoretical framework of integration, whereas information integration is the foundation of broader supply chain integration. E‐hubs open up communication and enlarge networking opportunities and thus tremendously affect information integration. By analyzing B2B e‐hubs, this paper explores the mechanism of information integration and points out managerial and technical limitations. Although there are many challenges, e‐hubs create value by aggregating and matching buyers and sellers, creating marketplace liquidity, and reducing transaction costs. E‐hubs could be a crucial solution to supply chain integration.

The paper uses GST as the theoretical foundation to analyze information integration in supply chain operations. The paper explores how e‐hubs can support supply chain integration, examines the design and development of B2B e‐hub architecture, and compares some enabling technologies. The research provides an understanding of how data interchange solutions can be implemented in supply chain operations.

This case study intends to add knowledge and understanding of supply chain management particularly with respect to international logistics.

The case study can be used in both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Students pursuing Master of Science in Logistics, Supply Chain Management and those doing bachelor degrees in the same areas can have a better insight and special interest of the case. Professional boards may also use the case to empirically make students understand this area.

The railway sub-sector in East Africa – Tanzania in particular – is an important transport mode but has a declining performance. The market share is estimated at only 4 percent of the freight market. Still knowledge about traffic, particularly for freight, is scant. The main dilemma is whether traffic of the central corridor is more intra- or inter-Tanzania. The case studies techniques appropriate for meaningful traffic forecasting and through a simple regression model it resolves the freight conflicts between Kenya rail and the Central Corridor. It provides students with applied traffic forecasting tools.

The case focuses on techniques of traffic forecasting, development of traffic scenarios and on issues related to intermodal transport especially between road, rail and ocean. At the end of using this Case students should be able to: explain the methods, techniques and models used in traffic forecasting; understand intermodal linkages in international Logistics; use different approaches to make logistics market assessment; and forecast traffic in all modes using different scenarios.

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This chapter uses airline data on fares, traffic, and flight characteristics to estimate a series of fare equations for international flights. The results are used to examine the role of international competition as a determinant of fares along international flights originating or departing from the United States. Findings suggest that actual and potential competition are important determinants of international airfares. We interpret these results as indicating that pricing behavior along US–international routes is consistent with the theory of imperfect contestability.

Since the 1980s the economic development of countries in East Asia has had a marked impact on the world port community, particularly in container transport. This paper analyses changes in the competitive environment of the world container port sector using some standard tools of market concentration. Initially, this paper reviews the competitive position of world container port system and then examines the East Asian economic environment. Both ordinal and cardinal measures of port system inequality are used to demonstrate both the rankings and levels of container throughput have been diverging in the world's major economic blocs. Conversely, East Asian countries during the 1990s have shown a trend towards convergence. Measures of dispersion suggest that ports in East Asian countries have become more competitive in their levels of container throughput.