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This chapter provides a critical discussion of air to rail mode substitution. Environmental impacts, intermodal competition and integration are considered, examining advantages and disadvantages as well as opportunities and constraints.

Both operation and life-cycle analysis perspectives show that high-speed rail (HSR) is much ‘greener’ than air transport (per seat-km or per passenger-km) provided that the former achieves high load factors and the latter lower load factors and that freed runway capacity is not reused. HSR travel time is its main competitive advantage against air transport, and a 600-km flight is arguably the current limit for robust intermodal effects.

The potential for air–HSR integration at the airport relies on various service, business and technical constraints. Even when it is successful, its environmental benefit appears to be marginal, if not negative, if airport capacity is reused for longer flights. In the current context, such integration appears more like a business opportunity for airlines, airports and train operators rather than a sustainable option. Yet the environmental benefit of integration may be larger within potential integrated transport policies.

This chapter reviews three main issues in the interactions between air transport and high-speed rail (HSR) in China, namely the interaction between low-cost carriers (LCCs) and HSR, HSR speed effect on airlines, and airline–HSR integration. Studies on these three aspects of airline–HSR interactions have yet been well reviewed, and our chapter aims to fill in this gap. In this chapter, we comprehensively survey literature on the topics, especially studies on Chinese markets that have recently witnessed major HSR developments (and have planned further large-scale HSR expansion in the coming years). Our review shows that, first, compared to full-service carriers, LCCs face fiercer competition from HSR. However, the expansion of HSR network in China can be better coordinated with LCC development. Second, HSR speed exerts two countervailing effects on airline demand and price (the “travel-time” effect and “safety” effect, respectively). Specifically, an HSR speed reduction can have a positive effect on airlines due to longer HSR travel time, but a negative effect on airlines due to improved perception on HSR safety. Third, airline–HSR integration can be implemented through cooperation between airlines and HSR operators and through co-location of airports and HSR stations and can have important implications for intermodal transport and social welfare.

There are large differences in both speed and costs between the traffic modes road and air. Rail has not yet successfully offered services “faster than road but cheaper than air”, although there are technical, logistical and economical opportunities for competing with air for intra‐continental shipments and co‐operate for intercontinental ones. The article categorises segments of the European express freight market and analyses them in a rail perspective. Services between Sweden and Continental Europe and domestically in Sweden are focused. System modelling tools are also adapted to the application of express intermodal transport and prospective roles for rail in express transport are defined. The analysis shows that a transport chain with many actors and long distances does not necessarily entail longer transport times than a short‐distance with the same circumstances under a single management. The analysis also shows that many express transport systems are built in a modular way, implying that subsystems can be exchanged.

This paper presents an overview of the recent development of Eurasian rail freight in the Belt and Road era and further evaluates its service quality in terms of transit times and transport costs compared to other transport modes in containerised supply chains between Europe and China.

A trade-off model of transit time and transport costs based on quantitative data from primary and secondary sources is developed to demonstrate the market niche for Eurasian rail freight vis-a-vis the more established modes of transport of sea, air and sea/air. In a scenario analysis, further cargo attributes influencing modal choice are employed to show for which cargo type Eurasian rail freight service is favourable from a shipper's point of view.

At present, Eurasian rail freight is about 80% less expensive than air freight with only half of the transit time of conventional sea freight. Our scenario analysis further suggests that for shipping time-sensitive goods with lower cargo value ranging from $US1.23/kg to $US10.89/kg as well as goods with lower time sensitivity and higher value in a range of $US2.46/kg to $US21.78/kg, total logistics costs of Eurasian rail freight service rail is cheaper than all other modes of transport.

As an emerging competitive solution, Eurasian rail freight demonstrates to be an option beneficial in terms of transport cost, transit time, reliability and service availability, which offers a cost-efficient option enabling shippers to build up agile and more sustainable supply chains between China and Europe.

Our study firstly provides a comprehensive assessment of present Eurasian rail freight including a thorough comparison with alternative modes of transport from a shipper's point of view.

According to the logistics performance index, emerging countries such as India are lagging behind developed countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH region). The purpose of this study is to compare and understand the differences in logistics outsourcing outlook in the two regions by considering both manufacturing firms (M-firms) and logistics service providers’ (LSPs) perspectives.

A survey targeting both LSPs and M-firms in DACH and India is conducted. A total of 96 responses were analyzed by using the chi-square test to investigate the differences and alignments in outsourcing motivation, relationship and governance between firms within and across regions.

M-firms in India bear strategic motivations behind outsourcing and those in DACH incline towards costs. LSPs in both regions align with the motivations of M-firms. M-firms in India rely more on LSPs by transferring the ownership of outsourced tasks, as compared to DACH. Both M-firms and LSPs in DACH claim a high level of ownership. However, firms in DACH and India do not differ significantly in terms of outsourcing engagements they seek.

The findings may only be generalized to large firms in India and DACH.

The findings of this study help managers enhance their understanding of the differences between M-firms and LSPs, and also across countries. LSPs in DACH, if they wish to operate successfully in India, will have to adapt to the M-firms strategic motivations and offer higher dependency.

This study is novel, as it investigates differences between India and DACH countries while also including both manufacturers’ and logistics service providers’ perspectives.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

This study aims to explore the gaps concerning the organizational operant resources (OORs) of logistics service providers (LSPs) expected in outsourcing relationships. The study considers the views of both manufacturing firms (M-firms) and LSPs in India and DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) seeking gaps within and across regions.

This research employed a survey targeting executives from large M-firms and LSPs in both India and DACH. The perceptions about the importance and improvement expectations of 17 OORs are analyzed. A modified version of importance-improvement analysis (A-B), a novel comparative A-B analysis (CABA) method, has been proposed to identify the importance and improvement gaps in OORs between M-firms and LSPs within and across India and the DACH region.

There are more gaps between M-firms and LSPs in India compared to DACH. Cross-country comparisons reveal that LSPs in India and DACH have similar perceptions concerning the OORs, but M-firms in India have significantly higher improvement expectations than those in DACH.

This study proposes an analytical approach that enables managers to identify improvement areas and better align with their outsourcing relationship partners. It also highlights aspects that need to be considered while entering emerging markets such as India.

The analysis approach using CABA is novel. Also, among the cross-country studies, this is the first to compare outsourcing relationships in India with the DACH region while involving both users' and service providers' perspectives.