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For the case of Sweden, this paper aims to determine how a range of different infrastructure fees and taxes influences modal split, port throughputs, air emissions, societal costs of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution, as well as logistics costs.

The Swedish national freight model is used to simulate a range of different proposed infrastructure fees, one by one and in combination. The volume of emissions of CO₂-equivalents, NOx, SOx and PM under the different scenarios is calculated in both volume and monetary terms, by applying national emission factors and EU values for external costs.

Road user fees are calculated to have the largest impact on the modal split, GHG emissions and air pollution. The impact increases slightly when road user fees are combined with higher fees for sea and rail and/or gate fees in all Swedish ports. The imposition of gate fees over €30 per truck in all ports leads to shifts in cargo to land-based modes and to ports outside Sweden. The logistics costs in Sweden are found to be three to ten times higher than the benefits of reduced GHG emissions and air pollution, although other benefits to society need to be considered as well.

Methods which attempt to evaluate alternative approaches to the internalisation of the external costs caused by transport need to be further developed. In particular, they need to encompass a more holistic perspective on “benefits to society”, other than merely reductions in GHG emissions and air pollution. To facilitate international acceptance and adoption, such methods require agreements to be reached on common definitions and routines.

The results can be used as basis for policy-making. They illustrate the environmental impacts of the fees and taxes one by one and in combination and to what extent these reinforce each other and should be co-ordinated.

The outcomes are relevant to national and international policymakers and authorities, as well as port authorities, shippers and transport companies who need to determine unilateral strategies on how to reduce GHG emissions and air pollution, without undermining their wider business objectives.

The approach is original in facilitating the testing of policies which impact on the transport system and the environment across different dimensions. The work has additional value in informing policy because of its use of Sweden’s national freight transport model.

This paper aims to study the function of standardisation in intermodal transport. It identifies where standardisation helps to improve intermodal transport, who is active in intermodal transport standardisation, what types of standards are needed and what the decision-making process and implementation of standards should be like to positively influence the performance of intermodal transportation.

An empirical study is designed to carry out this research project. The empirical study starts with a review of the organisations that are responsible for standardisation and intermodal transport, together with the standards that they have developed, and are developing, so far. It continues with analysing the topics where standardisation helps to improve the performance of intermodal transport. The analysis is based on 12 interviews, followed by desk research, to validate the respondents’ statements.

The results show that intermodal transportation should be distinguished in continental and maritime transport, which require different standards. In maritime transport, the hardware aspects of the system are highly standardised. However, further standardisation of information exchange offers potential to improve the quality of transport. For continental transport, challenges appear in the heterogeneity of infrastructure and loading units used in Europe. For both systems, openness and consensus are main requirements for the development of successful standards.

Standards facilitate interoperability, quality and safety of intermodal transportation, which leads to better performance. This has drawn little attention in the literature. This study addresses this gap and focuses on Europe.

The four purposes of this study are to understand the development and the current status of Taiwan’s far seas longline tuna fisheries through a review of the literature and interviews; to investigate the attitude of Taiwanese fishing vessel operators fishing in the Indian Ocean concerning the use of transportation under the influence of various factors; to analyze the relationship between changes in the transportation behavior of Taiwanese fishing vessel operators and various factors; and to provide suggestions to government and industry associations concerning the development of viable response strategies.

This paper uses methods including factor analysis and the analytic hierarchy process to analyze questionnaires collected from industry personnel and governmental personnel involved in the supply chain system of the longline tuna fishery in the Indian Ocean.

It is found that 16 assessment criteria in four major dimensions have major influence on the choice of cold chain transport. An assessment of all dimensions indicates that reefer ships are still the preferred means of transshipping frozen catch.

This paper seeks to investigate factors affecting choice of cold chain mode of transport from the perspective of Taiwanese companies operating longline tuna fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean, which are chiefly motivated by the need to reduce operating costs, and also looks at their choices of means of transport.

Shaanxi, Shanxi province and Inner Mongolia in north China are the nation’s leading producers of coal. In the past decades, a huge amount of coal has been transported from these areas to the central and south China via ports in Hebei Province and Port of Tianjin. Traditionally, coal is transported in bulk shipment. However, in recent years, an interesting phenomenon is that the lump coal is sorted out in the north and then moved in containers to the south. This paper aims to ascertain whether the coal containerization will become an alternative transport mode for moving lump coal from the north to the south of China. Based on extensive field investigation and data analyses, it is found that although the container mode appears to be more expensive than the bulk shipping mode, the cost difference between the two modes is not as significant as our expectation if we also take into factors like fragmented demand, environment pressure, geographic distribution characteristics of customers and so on.

Extensive field investigation, data analysis and economic decision model.

It is found that although the container mode appears to be more expensive than the bulk shipping mode, the cost difference between the two modes is not as significant as the authors’ expectation if they also take into factors like fragmented demand, environment pressure, geographic distribution characteristics of customers and so on.

Although the major focus has been placed on the food containerization, the coal containerization is still a new thing and has attracted only limited attention. This paper is making an initial attempt to profile the phenomenon of coal containerization in China. This attempt is believed to not only enrich the literature of coal containerization but also support the literature of bulk containerization.

This paper aims to identify the factors that experts consider important for the effective operation of multimodal transport using the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) in the Russian Far East and to also establish operational strategies that enable Korean logistics companies to use TSR efficiently for multimodal transportation.

A total of 65 questionnaires were distributed to predominantly Korean logistics companies/shippers with experience in TSR and 19 replies were received. The majority of the respondents are senior executives with at least 10 years of work experience. To identify the factors and present strategies, this study applied the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities -fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) method, which is based on complex multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) that facilitates decision-makers in considering an operational strategy by calculating the importance of input factors.

Results from the FAHP indicate that the Strengths is the main factor affecting TSR multimodal transport decisions, followed by the Threats, Opportunities and Weakness factors. In terms of rank, reduction of transportation distance and time are determined as the most crucial factor from the perspective of Korean logistics companies, followed by the northern logistics development plan, the Russian Government's willingness to the development plan, political instability and possible linkages with the Korean ports.

Through a hybrid MCDM analysis of Korean logistics companies, three operational strategies were proposed: foreign direct and small investments in the Russian Far East, Korean logistics companies implementing a cold-chain logistics service in the fishery industry and a government-led “Block Train Integration System” to secure the minimum threshold volume of cargo for small and medium-sized companies.

Congestion at Ghana’s main seaports is a problem that has received much attention recently. This is as a result of continuous increase in containerized cargo. To increase the capacity of Ghana’ seaport, the Ministry of Transport through the Ghana Shippers Council initiated the Boankra Inland Port Project. The aim of this paper is to assess the feasibility and economic effects of implementing the Boankra Inland Port as a solution to reduce congestion at the main seaports, as well as reduce transportation cost.

The location of the inland port was assessed using the gravitational model. Data for the gravitational model are distances from the main seaports in Ghana and Boankra Inland Port to major hinterland destinations and population of the destinations. Also, 210 respondents were selected and interviewed on contribution of the dry port concept to the economy and transportation management in Ghana.

The results of the gravitational model support the location of Boankra as an inland port. A further comparison between Tema and Takoradi shows that Tema has a better location as a distribution center than Takoradi.

Although Tema and Takoradi are the main seaports in Ghana, the implementation of the Boankra inland port will reduce the transportation cost for cargo with hinterland destinations, therefore making it a rational and cost-efficient location for transit transportation.

This paper is among the first significant attempts to evaluate the suitability of inland port implementation in Ghana.

This paper aims to introduce a new mixed integer programming formulation and associated heuristic algorithm to solve the Military Nodal Capacity Problem, which is a type of supply chain network design problem that involves determining the amount of capacity expansion required at theater nodes to ensure the on-time delivery of military cargo.

Supply chain network design, mixed integer programs, heuristics and regression are used in this paper.

This work helps analysts at the United States Transportation Command identify what levels of throughput capacities, such as daily processing rates of trucks and railcars, are needed at theater distribution nodes to meet warfighter cargo delivery requirements.

This research assumes all problem data are deterministic, and so it does not capture the variations in cargo requirements, transit times or asset payloads.

This work gives military analysts and decision makers prescriptive details about nodal capacities needed to meet demands. Prior to this work, insights for this type of problem were generated using multiple time-consuming simulations often involving trial-and-error to explore the trade space.

This work merges research of supply chain network design with military theater distribution problems to prescribe the optimal, or near-optimal, throughput capacities at theater nodes. The capacity levels must meet delivery requirements while adhering to constraints on the proportion of cargo transported by mode and the expected payloads for assets.

This paper aims to study the implication of the stochastic gross-profit-per-day objective on the ship profitability and the ship capacity and speed.

The paper has used the mathematical model and the solution methodology given by El Noshokaty, 2013, 2014, 2017a, 2017b, and SOS, 2019.

The paper finds that if the ship owner follows the rate concept and the cargo demand forecast, he can improve the profitability of his company and be able to select the proper capacities and speeds for the ships used.

The findings are not only useful for the shipping or other cargo transport companies but also for businesses like gas reservoir development, car assembly lines in the industry, cooperative farming and crop harvesting in agriculture, port cargo handling in trade and road paving in construction.

The contribution of this paper lies in notifying the ship owners of the possible profitability improvement and the consequences of building ships of larger capacities and slower speeds.

Avoiding truck congestion and peaks in landside activity is one of the challenges to container terminal managers. The spreading of truck arrivals at terminals can be facilitated by widening the opening hours of terminals at the landside. Israel’s Ministry of Transport has instituted the “Good Night Program”, involving monetary incentives for importers and exporters who deliver containers to ports at night.

This paper aims to quantitatively examine the market utility resulting from shifting traffic from daytime to nighttime, and analyzes customer considerations regarding nighttime transportation.

The external utility found in the traffic-economics model is quite similar to the economic incentive given to customers. Therefore, a significant increase of the incentive is not feasible.

Furthermore, it seems that an incentive method by itself is not effective enough, and does not motivate customers to act and find creative solutions to the obstacles they face. To achieve a considerable change in nighttime transport to Israeli ports, more effective methods should be examined.

This paper aims to empirically identify crucial international logistics policy enablers and to examine their impacts on logistics performance using survey data collected from 169 responding firms in Taiwan and 109 responding firms in the UK including logistics companies, freight forwarders, shipping companies, agencies and airline companies.

A multiple regression analysis is used as a method to empirically validate the research model.

Results indicate the five most important logistics policy enablers according to Taiwanese logistics firms are information technology system, inland transport linkage, simplifying the customs clearance procedures, ports and maritime transport and having a policy to ensure efficient service operation and multiplicity of services. In contrast, for the UK logistics firms, the five most important logistics policy enablers are telecommunications, information technology system, avoidance of unnecessary regulation, inland transport linkage and ports and maritime transport. Results also indicate that logistics policy dimensions in terms of regulation, integration, infrastructure and logistics education have a positive influence on firms’ logistics service quality and efficiency.

Theoretical and policy implications from the research findings on logistics policy between these two countries are discussed in this paper.