The past decade has seen many new freight transport models for use in transport planning by public authorities. Some of these models have developed new concepts, such as logistics modules, inclusion of transshipments, storage and sourcing and the determination of shipment size. This paper provides a review of the European literature on freight transport models that operate at the national or international level and have been developed since 2004. The introduction of elements of logistics thinking is identified as a common theme in recently developed models, and further worked out. Furthermore, ideas on what might be the next key developments in freight transport modelling are presented.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and classify the various initiatives developed and implemented across the globe for the abatement of maritime air emissions. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, an extensive survey of various sources was conducted, including the official reports of international and regional institutions, government policy documents, port authority websites, classification society pages, private firms’ sites and the academic literature. The initiatives were then categorized in accordance with the classification of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and analyzed using the SPSS Statistics software to give some insight into their frequencies and the interrelationships between them. Findings This exploratory review resulted in the establishment of a comprehensive global database of initiatives encouraged by the whole range of shipping stakeholders and decision-makers for the reduction of shipping air emissions. According to the findings, economic incentives that provide motivation for the adoption of less environmentally damaging practices are the most commonly used initiative, followed by infrastructure investments and informative policies. Research limitations/implications The results provide implications for further research that include an in-depth analysis of ports’ policies, as well as an evaluation of initiatives applied on a large scale to map their emissions reduction potential for shipping. Originality/value The main contribution of this paper is the identification and analysis of all the diverse initiatives implemented globally in a comprehensive way and its dealing with air pollution from shipping as a whole.

Purpose There is limited up-to-date knowledge about the monetary valuation of improved reliability for freight transports. This means that the benefits of reduced variability in transport time are not properly taken into account in cost-benefit analysis relating to, for example, infrastructure investments. Methods We develop on a conceptual level an estimation approach for the value of reduced transportation time variability (VTTV) related to the cargo component based on precautionary and operative delay costs. This approach is inspired by the safety stock approach but includes more general precautionary measures that firms take to avoid stock-out costs. This paper presents the analysis of a Swedish grocery company's transports by shuttle train as a case study. First, the distribution of the arrival times of the shuttle train is analyzed in order to estimate the transportation time variability for the firm. Second, precautionary costs for measures undertaken to manage and mitigate the transportation time variability are estimated and the additional operational costs that occur in case of major delays are calculated. Results It is found that the 10 % worst delays contribute to more than half of the total train delays, showing that actual transportation times exhibit a heavily skewed distribution with fat tails, indicating that the standard deviation might not be a sufficient measure of transport time variability. The calculated VTTV related to the cargo component based on the precautionary costs is around €4 per delay-tonne-hour and around €2.2 per standard deviation of transportation time. Conclusions We show that by conducting a case study it is possible to get VTTV estimates for the cargo component valid for a specific company. In conclusion, assuming a high degree of transport market concentration with regard to shippers, a limited number of case studies for key companies in the market might be sufficient to get a representative VTTV measure. We therefore advocate further case studies and research aimed at getting more inputs from firms that send and receive goods. More research should also be done on how to incorporate risks for delays and the extremeness of empirical delays in transport models and VTTV definitions.

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