U.S. Freight Rail Economics and Policy
U.S. Freight Rail Economics and Policy

Author: Jeffrey Macher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-25

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0429633645

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The passage of the Staggers Rail Act in 1980 led brought a renaissance to the freight rail industry. In the decade following, economists documented the effects of the Act on a variety of important economic metrics including prices, costs, and productivity. Over the preceding years, and with the return of the industry to more stable footing, attention to the industry by economists faded. The lack of attention, however, has not been due to a dearth of ongoing economic and policy issues that continue to confront the industry. In this volume, we begin to rectify this inattention. Rather than retread older analyses or provide yet another look at the consequences of Staggers, we assemble a collection of ten chapters in four sections that collectively provide fresh and up-to-date analyses of the economic issues and policy challenges the industry faces: the first section sets the context through foundational discussion of freight rail; the second section highlights the role of freight rail in an increasingly interrelated economy; the third section examines industry structure and scope in freight rail; and the fourth section assesses current regulatory challenges that confront freight rail. This book will be of great value to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students interested in the fields of freight rail economics and policy, transportation, business history, and regulatory economics.

The State of U.S. Railroads
The State of U.S. Railroads

Author: Brian Weatherford

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 0833045059

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The volume of freight transported in the United States is expected to double in the next 30 years. An increased use of rail freight could allow the supply chain to accommodate these increased volumes while minimizing highway congestion and improving energy efficiency in the transportation sector. Shippers and policymakers are concerned that the existing infrastructure--much diminished after decades of track abandonment--lacks sufficient capacity to accommodate the increased demand for rail freight. This report draws from publicly available data on the U.S. railroad industry to provide observations about rail infrastructure capacity and performance in freight transportation. Railroads have improved their productivity in the past three decades, mitigating immediate concerns about capacity, but concerns about future capacity constraints appear to be justified. Insufficient data exist to determine whether rail performance is now stable, significantly declining, or improving. The railroad system is privately owned and operated, but there is a public role for easing rail capacity constraints because private decisions about transportation investment and freight shipping have public consequences for safety and the environment. A better understanding of the public and private cost trade-offs between shipping freight by truck and by rail is needed. Improvements to data quality and freight-modeling tools will improve the ability for policymakers to better target public investment in the rail freight transportation system.

Critical Infrastructure
Critical Infrastructure

Author: Alan T. Murray

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-05-05

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 354068056X

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This text brings together differing geographic perspectives in modeling and analysis in order to highlight infrastructure weaknesses or plan for their protection. Offering new methodological approaches, the book explores the potential consequences of critical infrastructure failure, stemming from both man-made and natural disasters. The approaches employed are wide-ranging, including geographic, economic and social perspectives.