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.
Transportation Policy and Economic Regulation: Essays in Honor of Theodore Keeler addresses a number of today's important transportation policy issues, exploring a variety of transportation modes, and examining the policy implications of a number of alternatives. Theodore Keeler had a distinguished career in transportation economics, helping to shape regulatory policies concerning the transportation industries and assessing the appropriateness of various policies. A distinguishing feature of his work is that it always had policy implications. As a tribute to Theodore Keeler, this book examines transportation policy issues across a variety of transportation industries, including aviation, railroads, highways, motor carrier transport, automobiles, urban transit, and ocean shipping. The book evaluates the economic impact and effectiveness of various policies, employing empirical analyses and new estimation techniques, such as Bayesian analysis. The book is designed for transportation professionals and researchers, as well as transportation economics students, providing an in-depth analysis of some of today's important transportation policy issues. Policy changes established in the last 35-40 years have introduced profound changes in the business environment of the transportation industry. Past policy changes promoted the free market's role in setting prices and determining service availability. While 21st century policy has focused on a variety of other issues, such as safety, road and air congestion, productivity growth, labor relations and exhaust emission, many still promote the role of competition. In addition to examining various transportation policy issues in the U.S., the book explores some approaches to dealing with transportation issues in different parts of the world. Contemporary transportation policy debates have broadened from their initial focus of primarily examining the merits of reforming economic regulations at national levels, to now examining a variety of issues such as alternative methods of social regulation (such as safety regulation and emission controls), new approaches to changing economic regulations, the potential for reforming international regulations, and the appropriate role for government in transportation. - Examines transportation policy developments across a variety of modes, including some international analysis - Shows how new policy changes, such as changes in regulation, affect overall transportation system performance - Features chapters that use innovative methodologies, such as Bayesian techniques, qualitative analysis, and an attribute-incorporated Malmquist productivity index - Examines the ways that policy impacts depend on a variety of factors, and shows how economic tools can be used to gain greater insights into the likely impacts of policy and the desirability of various policies - Analyzes transport prices, quality of service, safety, the use of information technology and operating issues, highlighting how transportation enhances quality of life
This report captures ways in which policy makers and senior officials in railway organizations from emerging economies can accelerate modal shift to rail. Such officials, as well as the general public, aspire for more freight to be moved by rail. The environmental and societal benefits of such a shift are compelling. And yet investment in railways is often not followed by a corresponding increase in freight moved by rail. This report highlights the fact that, in a world of changing global supply chains and logistics, the approach to regaining modal share needs to be different. The expectation that lower cost and efficient rail service will automatically lead to modal shift from road to rail has not been a reality in most emerging economies. Modern railways focus on understanding the logistics of targeted freight and positioning rail transport services as part of an overall logistics system aimed at meeting the needs of customers.
Overregulated and displaced by barges, trucks, and jet aviation, railroads fell into decline. Their misfortune was measured in lost market share, abandoned track, bankruptcies, and unemployment. Today, rail transportation is reviving. American Railroads tells a riveting story about how this iconic industry managed to turn itself around.
Discover the story of Amtrak, America's Railroad, 50 years in the making. In 1971, in an effort to rescue essential freight railroads, the US government founded Amtrak. In the post–World War II era, aviation and highway development had become the focus of government policy in America. As rail passenger services declined in number and in quality, they were simultaneously driving many railroads toward bankruptcy. Amtrak was intended to be the solution. In Amtrak, America's Railroad: Transportation's Orphan and Its Struggle for Survival, Geoffrey H. Doughty, Jeffrey T. Darbee, and Eugene E. Harmon explore the fascinating history of this popular institution and tell a tale of a company hindered by its flawed origin and uneven quality of leadership, subjected to political gamesmanship and favoritism, and mired in a perpetual philosophical debate about whether it is a business or a public service. Featuring interviews with former Amtrak presidents, the authors examine the current problems and issues facing Amtrak and their proposed solutions. Created in the absence of a comprehensive national transportation policy, Amtrak manages to survive despite inherent flaws due to the public's persistent loyalty. Amtrak, America's Railroad is essential reading for those who hope to see another fifty years of America's railroad passenger service, whether they be patrons, commuters, legislators, regulators, and anyone interested in railroads and transportation history.
The European railway sector has undergone profound and predominantly institutional changes over the past 20 years, due to the initiatives of the European Commission. This book constitutes a first systematic assessment and account of the recent transformations of the industry along a series of critical yet contentious issues such as competition, unbundling, regulation, access charging, standards and interoperability, and public-private partnerships. It also covers the main railways sectors including passenger transport, high speed and freight.
An examination of how post-9/11 security concerns have transformed the public view and governance of infrastructure. After September 11, 2001, infrastructures—the mundane systems that undergird much of modern life—were suddenly considered “soft targets” that required immediate security enhancements. Infrastructure protection quickly became the multibillion dollar core of a new and expansive homeland security mission. In this book, Ryan Ellis examines how the long shadow of post-9/11 security concerns have remade and reordered infrastructure, arguing that it has been a stunning transformation. Ellis describes the way workers, civic groups, city councils, bureaucrats, and others used the threat of terrorism as a political resource, taking the opportunity not only to address security vulnerabilities but also to reassert a degree of public control over infrastructure. Nearly two decades after September 11, the threat of terrorism remains etched into the inner workings of infrastructures through new laws, regulations, technologies, and practices. Ellis maps these changes through an examination of three U.S. infrastructures: the postal system, the freight rail network, and the electric power grid. He describes, for example, how debates about protecting the mail from anthrax and other biological hazards spiraled into larger arguments over worker rights, the power of large-volume mailers, and the fortunes of old media in a new media world; how environmental activists leveraged post-9/11 security fears over shipments of hazardous materials to take on the rail industry and the chemical lobby; and how otherwise marginal federal regulators parlayed new mandatory cybersecurity standards for the electric power industry into a robust system of accountability.
Several of the papers in this volume are concerned with assessing both the timing and the impacts of deregulation and regulatory reform in the US transportation sector. Of increasing interest is the importance of productivity growth and the role played by new technologies in a more competitive market environment. Four of the papers in this volume deal directly with these issues in the context of motor carriers and railroads, two sectors which have been operating under substantially reduced regulatory constraints for the past twenty years in the US. Although the financial condition of US railroads has improved since 1980, there is still some concern regarding their long run viability as private enterprises. Accordingly, one of the papers considers the potential for further reductions in railroad costs through transcontinental mergers, a controversial issue due to the small number of railroads that remain in the industry.
