The cost of combined transport. Report of the 64th Round table on transport economics, Paris, 12th-13th January 1984

122 Pages·1984·3.872 MB·English

by  OECD

ECONOMICRESEARCH CENTRE
THE COST OF COMBINED
TRANSPORT
EUROPEANCONFERENCEOFMINISTERSOFTRANSPORT
PARIS1984
ECONOMICRESEARCHCENTRE
REPORTOF
THE SIXTY FOURTH ROUNDTABLE
ONTRANSPORTECONOMICS
Held in Paris on 12th-13th January 1984
on the following topic:
THE COST OF COMBINED
TRANSPORT
EUROPEANCONFERENCEOFMINISTERSOFTRANSPORT
THE EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORT [ECMT]
The European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT).an inter-governmental organisation,
establishedbya Protocolsignedin Brusselson 17thOctober 1953,constitutesaforumfortheMinistersof
Transportof 19Europeancountries1.TheworkoftheCouncilofMinistersispreparedbyaCommitteeof
Deputies.
ThepurposesoftheConferenceare:
a) to take whatever measures may be necessary to achieve, at general or regional level, the most
efficient use and rational development of European inland transport of international impor¬
tance;
b) toco-ordinateandpromotetheactivitiesofinternationalorganisationsconcernedwith European
inland transport, taking intoaccount theworkofsupranationalauthorities in thisfield.
MajorproblemswhicharebeingstudiedbytheECMTinclude:transportpolicy;thefinancialsituation
and organisation of railways and road transport; problems concerning inland waterway transport and
combined transport; development ofEuropean trunk lines ofcommunication; problems concerning urban
transport;thepreventionofroadaccidentsandco-ordination,atEuropeanlevel,ofroadtrafficrulesandroad
signsand signals; traffictrends andlong-termtraffic forecasts.
Moreover,the ECMTorganises RoundTablesandSymposia.Theirconclusionsareconsideredbythe
competentorgansoftheConference,undertheauthorityoftheCommitteeofDeputies,sothatthelattermay
formulate proposalsforpolicydecisions tobesubmittedtothe Ministers.
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1. Austria,Belgium,Denmark. Finland,France,Germany,Greece,Ireland,Italy,Luxembourg,theNetherlands,Norway,Portugal,
Spain,Sweden,Switzerland,Turkey,theUnitedKingdomandYugoslavia(associatedcountries:Australia,Canada,Japan,UnitedStates).
Publicenfrancaissouslelitre:
LECOUTDUTRANSPORTCOMBINE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE COST OF COMBINED TRANSPORT
FRANCE
M. Frybourg (cid:9) 5
GERMANY
C. Seidelmann (cid:9) 31
ITALY
G. Sciarrone and M. Carrara (cid:9) 51
NETHERLANDS
J.H.P. van Rens (cid:9) 77
SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION
(Round Table debate on the reports) (cid:9) 103
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS (cid:9) 114
ECMT ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE
Forthcoming publications (cid:9) 119

FRANCE
Michel Frybourg
Ingenieur General
des Ponts et Chaussees
Paris
SUMMARY
WHAT IS COMBINED TRANSPORT? (cid:9) 7
COMBINED OUTPUTS ON A SPECIFIC NETWORK
INFRASTRUCTURE (cid:9) . .'(cid:9) 7
THE SWOP BODY: A SUITABLE TECHNIQUE FOR LAND
TRANSPORT (cid:9)'. i. ..;.:..'. : (cid:9) 9
WHAT IS THE BREAK-EVEN DISTANCE BEYOND WHICH COMBINED
TRANSPORT BECOMES AN ECONOMIC PROPOSITION:
400 OR 1,500 KM? (cid:9) ..;.'. (cid:9) 12
ECONOMIC DEPRECIATION AND THE CONSTRAINTS OF STRUCTURE
GAUGES (cid:9) 13
COMPREHENSION OF THE PROBLEM (cid:9) 15
ROLLING STOCK AND FACILITIES (cid:9) 16
INFRASTRUCTURE (cid:9) 16
DAILY COST OF WAGONS (cid:9) 16
TRANSFER COSTS (cid:9) 17
COMBINED OUTPUTS, DEPRECIATION AND SOCIAL COSTS (cid:9) 17
COSTS RELEVANT TO SIX SERVICES (cid:9) 18
DISPERSED TRAFFIC (cid:9) 18
MAXIMUM LOAD BLOCK TRAIN (cid:9) 19
GENERAL FORMULAE FOR CALCULATING RAIL TRACTION COSTS . 20
IMPACT OF DIFFERENT PARAMETERS (cid:9) 21
CONCLUSIONS WITH RESPECT TO MARGINAL COSTS OF
RAIL TRACTION (cid:9) 25
GENERAL CONCLUSION (cid:9) 26
WHAT IS COMBINED TRANSPORT?
Combined transport may be defined as the transport of
integral unit loads or hire/reward haulage units using at
least two land transport modes. Attention will be focused
more specifically on piggyback transport i.e. use of rail
and road.
Combined transport services relate to three types of
traffic with quite different characteristics:
- the land transport of ISO maritime containers;
- the transport of different types of unit load for
inland customers;
- routing by rail of vehicle elements belonging to
road hauliers: swop bodies, semi-trailers and,
more rarely, complete vehicles with tractive units.
International traffic accounts for a larger propor¬
tion than domestic traffic and is developing at a faster
pace. It involves not only the inland continuation of sea
traffic but also traffic that is entirely inland.
Cost calculations have to take account of three fam¬
iliar difficulties in transport economics: a specific in¬
frastructure, combined outputs, and a network.
COMBINED OUTPUTS ON A SPECIFIC NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
- Combined transport calls for a specific infrastruc¬
ture i.e. the transshipment terminal for which the cost of
use will have to be established. The specific nature of
this infrastructure makes combined transport a separate
mode of transport and not simply the product of using two
modes. This does not make cost calculations any easier.
- Combined transport services on the same infrastruc¬
ture are not homogeneous, since combined outputs(l) are
involved and the cost analysis must be as detailed as
Essentially the ISO maritime container and the swop
body that can be used only for land transport.
7
possible so as to allocate the relevant expenditure to
each category of traffic. The avoidable cost of a type of
traffic in a series of combined outputs is equal to the
total expenditure eliminated when the corresponding
traffic is discontinued. This avoidable cost approach
makes it possible to determine more accurately the expen¬
diture to be allocated to a specific type of traffic, ir¬
respective of whether average or marginal costs are to be
calculated. There is less risk of omissions when calcul¬
ating allocatable expenditure if it is assumed that: al-
locatable expenditure = partial costs + avoidable costs.
- Account must be taken of the "network" effect,
since the establishment of a terminal becomes necessary to
consolidate a structure of existing terminals and not
simply to meet local requirements. The terminal must not
therefore be regarded as an autonomous entity but as a
component of a network.
The three above-mentioned problems make it very dif¬
ficult to determine the costs to be allocated to a parti¬
cular transport operation. Severe financing problems
arise owing to the existence of a specific infrastructure
which costs a great deal to develop in relation to the
turnover of combined transport activity. Economies of
scale are important, however, and growth in traffic during
this crisis period for freight transport will occur in a
zero-sum or even negative-sum game, i.e. the increase in
combined transport will be to the detriment of either rail
wagon or lorry traffic. Normally, therefore, account
should be taken of the cost of diminished activity for
competing modes, i.e. the risk of transport covering a
smaller proportion of the fixed costs of the railways or
the effects of diminished activity on hire/reward road
haulage. In particular, care will be taken not to plump
for short-term profits rather than the consolidation of
economically competitive traffic. Moreover, the cost of
diminished activity is not necessarily negative. For ex¬
ample, the transfer of the main leg of a journey to rail
may mean that investment in a road project can be post¬
poned (conversely, it may be conducive to investment in
rail capacity).
These methodological difficulties cannot be resolved
once and for all and they must be dealt with in the parti¬
cular context of current trends in combined transport
which calls for the choice of development strategies, a
choice that needs to be clarified by means of an "economic
equation" based on cost calculations. Thus, when the
railways invest Frs. 100 million in a combined transport
terminal, the funds are not available for other investment
projects whose comparative profitability should be
assessed.
THE SWOP BODY: A SUITABLE TECHNIQUE FOR LAND TRANSPORT
Where traffic is increasing the situation differs
according to whether a growth rate of 7 or 15 per cent is
expected. It is difficult to provide finance for infra¬
structures to be written down over a long period, parti¬
cularly if the surplus generated by this development is
either inadequate or poorly distributed among the economic
transactors concerned.
From this standpoint the development of maritime con¬
tainer traffic does not pose the same type of problem.
Land transport simply follows the trend in packaging the
various types of goods in maritime transport and the over¬
all demand for containers to be carried is a land trans¬
port statistic. This is a classical case of rail/road
competition.
The introduction of the 2.50-metre wide swop body or
land container - possiby non-stackable - is quite another
matter. The technique dates from the mid-1970s or about
the time of the first oil shock and the beginning of the
economic crisis which has had a heavy impact on freight
traffic. The present rate of expansion of the NOVATRANS
Company's swop bodies in France is some 50 to 60 per cent
per year. Even without going very deeply into the matter,
it seems clear that the system will be disrupted somewhat
if a new technique is introduced in a zero-sum or even
negative-sum game with substantial growth.
By greatly simplifying the existing situation, i.e.
provisionally taking no account of the transport of semi¬
trailers and unit loads smaller than 70 m3 - clearly an
over-simplification but an interesting means of demons¬
trating the kinds of strategic choices available - it can
be said that the question confronting the railways, road
hauliers and public authorities is as follows:
Since inland transport is required to carry ISO con¬
tainers, primarily arriving by sea, is it economically
advantageous - now that a technique adapted to inland
transport is available, namely the swop body - to develop
a specific mode on the basis of a network of terminals
involving heavy infrastructural investment?
The swop body introduces three changes:
- since it is a unit load rather than a haulage unit,
it opens combined transport to own account opera¬
tions and to shippers. Rates are at present dis¬
suasive but cannot long remain so without any eco¬
nomic justification;