Freight Transport and the Modern Economy adapts a well-known textbook by Michel Savy, revising, extending and updating it for British, European and international readers. It deals not only with the technical aspects of transport, logistics and supply chain management, but also the interactions between transport professionals and the public authorities in the modern social, political, economic and environmental context. The transport of freight is presented as a system, mixing empirics and theory, showing how transport itself functions and also its strong influence on the modern economy, with a growing volume of production, turnover and employment. The nature of freight transport, an industrial process widely marketed as a service, is analysed in depth, explaining the main characteristics of the transport operation, its market and the regulatory context. The main actors, the professional actors (carriers, shippers and other agents) and the public authorities are introduced, and their behaviour and interactions are clarified. This comprehensive approach allows the reader to go further and consider in particular the approaches and practices of transport by carriers, customers, logistics managers, political decision makers and citizens, to tackle long range issues such as the ‘decoupling’ of production and transport recommended by some institutions and experts, and to explore the need for more infrastructure, or the capacity of the freight transport industry to reduce its contribution to pollution and climate change. This book treats freight transport as a whole system in its technical, economic, social, political and environmental context, in contrast to existing transport literature focused on individual aspects, such as transportation planning (usually for cars or passengers), logistics (essentially management issues), or individual transport modes. This book is comprehensive in its treatment of freight transport and in its use of multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Freight Transport and the Modern Economy adapts a well-known textbook by Michel Savy, revising, extending and updating it for British, European and international readers. It deals not only with the technical aspects of transport, logistics and supply chain management, but also the interactions between transport professionals and the public authorities in the modern social, political, economic and environmental context. The transport of freight is presented as a system, mixing empirics and theory, showing how transport itself functions and also its strong influence on the modern economy, with a growing volume of production, turnover and employment. The nature of freight transport, an industrial process widely marketed as a service, is analysed in depth, explaining the main characteristics of the transport operation, its market and the regulatory context. The main actors, the professional actors (carriers, shippers and other agents) and the public authorities are introduced, and their behaviour and interactions are clarified. This comprehensive approach allows the reader to go further and consider in particular the approaches and practices of transport by carriers, customers, logistics managers, political decision makers and citizens, to tackle long range issues such as the ‘decoupling’ of production and transport recommended by some institutions and experts, and to explore the need for more infrastructure, or the capacity of the freight transport industry to reduce its contribution to pollution and climate change. This book treats freight transport as a whole system in its technical, economic, social, political and environmental context, in contrast to existing transport literature focused on individual aspects, such as transportation planning (usually for cars or passengers), logistics (essentially management issues), or individual transport modes. This book is comprehensive in its treatment of freight transport and in its use of multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Transportation is the world's largest invisible industry. Modern society is completely dependent on transportation to sustain its way of life, and it is all around us constantly. Yet the economics of transportation is a mystery to most people. Why do air fares rise and fall? Why do urban transit systems struggle to survive and require such large public subsidies? Why does freight transport cost more to move in one direction than an equal distance in another? Why is the government so heavily involved in transportation? Concepts of Transportation Economics provides explanations to these queries and many more, as well-renowned experts in the field, Barry E Prentice and Darren Prokop interpret the unique dynamics underlying transportation through the lens of applied economics, and demonstrate that the operations of transportation are completely logical and obvious once the concepts that underlie business decisions and consumer reactions are explained.

Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.

This title addresses the need to develop new freight transport models and scientific tools to provide sound solutions that consider the wide range of internal and external impacts. The international contributions push forward frontiers in freight transport modelling and analysis.