• Contents
• Message from General Editor
• Vehicle Platoons
• Grain Barge Demand
• Safety and Security
• Air Transportation
• LTL Motor Carrier Industry
• Commercial Vehicle Operators
• Motor Carrier Safety
• Nighttime Visual Sign Inspection
• Logistics Costs
• Commuter Rail Transit and Freight Railroads
• The Rebirth of Airships
• Traffic Safety

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Message from the General Editor

This is the third issue of the Journal of the Transportation Research Forum (JTRF) by our new publisher, the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota. This issue of JTRF contains the usual wide variety of transport topics that distinguishes JTRF from other transportation journals. Topical areas include:

• Urban traffic control
• Grain barge demand on inland waterways
• Public transportation safety and security
• Airport investment under uncertainty
• Customer satisfaction in the LTL motor carrier industry
• Value of time for commercial vehicle operators
• Shared operation of commuter rail transit and freight railroads
• Motor carrier safety
• Highway safety
• Potential transport role of airships
• Freight demand modeling

Yi Jiang and Shuo Li investigate vehicle platoon (a group of vehicles traveling together) characteristics and develop appropriate control logic for traffic signals in "Characteristics of Vehicle Platoons at Isolated Intersections." They found that platoon size has a negative exponential distribution, platoon headway and platoon speed have a normal distribution, and platoon inter-arrival time fits the log normal distribution.

In "The Measurement of Grain Barge Demand on Inland Waterways: A Study of the Upper Mississippi River," Tun-Hsiang (Edward) Yu and Stephen Fuller estimate the structural demand for grain barge transport. They found that demand is price inelastic in the short run (0.48), but increases to 1.02 in the long run. They also discovered that foreign grain demand and U.S. grain consumption positively affect grain barge demand, while the winter season and floods affect demand negatively.

Kathryn Dobie and Rhonda Hensley develop a method for determining transit rider perceptions of the safety and security policies of their transit provider in "Safety and Security: Developing a Cooperative Process to Meet the Public Transportation Challenge." They found that 52% of the transit riders could identify no more than one transit system safety device, and 85% could identify no more than one security device. The authors also discovered that transit riders feel more concerned about safety and security than transit drivers.

In "Investments Under Uncertainty in Air Transportation: A Real Options Perspective," Bruno Miller and John-Paul Clarke develop a methodology for making investment decisions in air transport infrastructure by determining the value of flexible capacity expansion strategies. The authors concluded that in cases of airport runway construction, flexibility with regard to the investment decision is very valuable. Having the option to abandon the project if expected demand fails to materialize can avoid spending considerable resources on a project that eventually proves to have been unnecessary.

Carl Scheraga uses a data envelopment methodology to assess the strategic orientations of LTL motor carriers and their impact on customer satisfaction in "The Relative Efficiency in the Blending of Strategic Dimensions Utilized in the Generation of Customer Satisfaction in the LTL Motor Carrier Industry." Scheraga discovered that "best practice" LTL motor carriers exhibited a variety of different configurations with regard to strategic dimension intensities. Other findings included that there is a positive relationship between quality of service and motor carrier profitability, and the efficiency of a firm's strategic dimension intensities had a significant impact on the service quality realized by customers.

In "Value of Time for Commercial Vehicle Operators," Brian Smalkoski and David Levinson estimate the value of time for commercial vehicle operators in Minnesota to quantify the effects of spring season load restrictions. They collected data using an adaptive stated preference survey and fit a tobit model to the data. Smalkoski and Levinson estimated the value of time to be $49.42 per hour. The authors found that the value of time is lower for private fleets than for-hire firms.

Sarah J. Dammen addresses motor carrier safety from the perspective of the motor carriers in "The Effects of Safety Practices, Technology Adoption, and Firm Characteristics on Motor Carrier Safety." Dammen found that fleet speed limits, safety performance marketing strategies, apprenticeship training programs, and collision avoidance systems are negatively related to carrier accident rates. Also the firm characteristics of unionization, safety performance marketing, and use of owner operators significantly reduce motor carrier accident rates.

In "A Quantitative Evaluation of the Nighttime Visual Sign Inspection Method," William J. Rasdorf, Joseph E. Hummer, Stephanie C. Vereen, and Hubo Cai develop a spreadsheet tool to evaluate the effectiveness of different warning and stop sign inspection and replacement scenarios. The authors concluded that state DOTs should consider replacing all signs every seven years. They found that if total replacement is impossible, an inspection program using retroreflectometers every three years is just as effective as a program using visual inspection rates each year.

Michael F. Gorman and Daniel G. Conway develop a model to identify the potential demand for intercity truckload service as well as intermodal service in "Logistics Costs Based Estimation of Freight Transportation Demand." The potential modal demands are measured for the most heavily utilized shipment lanes in the western U.S. by estimating minimum total logistics costs by mode. The authors concluded that considerable freight volumes could be delivered with lower logistics cost by switching from truckload to intermodal transportation.

This issue of JTRF contains two Industry Issue papers, which are descriptive studies focused on a particular mode.

Rongfang Liu, Fei Yang, and Mei Chen identify the key factors that affect successful shared use operations between commuter rail and freight railroads in "Understanding the Shared Operation of Commuter Rail Transit and Freight Railroads." The authors obtained survey data from all 21 commuter railroads in North America. The data revealed that the critical issues include dispatching and scheduling, freight railroad altitude, capacity constraints, communications, insurance and liability, and funding problems.

In "The Rebirth of Airships," Barry E. Prentice, Richard P. Beilock, Jim Thomson, and Alfred J. Phillips discuss the potential passenger and freight transport roles of airships as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Airship technology and costs are explained by the authors. To illustrate airship potential two case studies are examined which are shipments of pineapple and papaya from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland, and short-haul airship freight service to remote communities in northern Canada.

Michael W. Babcock
General Editor, JTRF

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