Search

It is essential that transport infrastructures are protected against events which cause their failure. At an optimal level of protection, the sum of protection costs and expected residual damages following from disruptions will be minimized. In most cases however, this optimal level is not achieved because infrastructure protection is susceptible to various market and government failures. This brings us to the question who (a private or public actor) should do how much (the level of protection and intervention). This question is addressed in the present paper. The starting point of the paper is the Directive of the European Council on the identification and designation of European Critical Infrastructures. We review the protection of critical waterborne transport infrastructures from an economic perspective. The review is based on a literature study and several interviews with Critical Infrastructure experts. For the studied infrastructures, we have identified causes and effects of their failure and examined the private–public roles in protecting them. Considering the market and government failures which occur in such configuration of roles, we propose several changes. We conclude that from a national policy perspective there are two important routes: (1) reinforcement of private sector roles among others by defining liabilities and providing information on risks and (2) strengthening of supra-national collaboration via improving and standardizing regulations, cost-sharing initiatives and penalty systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The challenge in this paper is to examine to what extent increased barge transport offers an alternative for road transport. To increase barge transport, innovations are needed. The central issue is as follows. Which barge innovations can be implemented successfully? The paper reviews the most important academic literature (some of which is scarce) on barge transport. The literature has been used as input to evaluate the potential of barge innovations for broad market‐based introduction. Furthermore, the innovations have been evaluated on their potential to enlarge the barge market. The analysis leads to a number of conclusions. The most promising innovations for a successful broad‐based market introduction are the catalyst and filter systems Z‐drive, Tempomaat, air‐lubricated barges, model shift scans, Distrivaart, dedicated barges and sea–river transport. Besides the innovation having a success potential in terms of broad‐based market introduction, it is important that the innovation enlarges the market for barge transport. Only three of the potential successful innovations (Distrivaart, dedicated barges and sea–river transport) also show the potential to enlarge the market for barge transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The institutional environment of rail transport has changed as a result of recent European directives, but the changes have taken different forms from one country to another. In the case of international maritime chains, the development of door‐to‐door services makes inland haulage from the loading and discharging ports extremely important, and it highlights the need to reshape the rail freight industry. This paper analyses the degree of involvement of different actors drawn from the maritime industry in developing and commercializing rail services in the changing regulatory environment. Several maritime operators, shipping lines, port‐handling companies and port authorities have been involved in some container rail services since the early days of liberalization. Their commitments take very different forms, however. Whereas contracts are mainly used for the provision of service, particularly for train haulage, integration by means of shareholding or creating subsidiaries or joint ventures is used for marketing. Important differences between France, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands are detailed. In the latter two countries, there is more involvement in the provision of rail services. Marketing rail services appear to be the main strategic issue for the maritime operators in all four countries [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]