Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Commercial Geography
Transactions
Movements
Transport Geography
Transferability:
Policy barriers (tariffs, custom inspections, quotas).
Geographical barriers (time, distance).
Transportation barriers (the simple capacity to move the outcome of a
transaction).
Transactional capacity:
Must be legally possible to make a transaction.
Recognition of a currency for trading.
Volume:
Physical characteristic, mainly involving a mass.
Weight is variable when trade involves raw materials.
Scale:
Range of a transaction.
Retailing transactions tend to occur at a local scale.
Transactions of a multinational corporation are global in scale.
Free trade.
Differences in levels of development.
Technological, industrial and geopolitical changes.
Global and regional interdependence and competition.
Growing economic opportunities offered by transportation.
255
188
195
Western Europe
(1,677)
252
North America
(391)
312
376
207
333
205
287
Asia / Pacific
(722)
96
Rest of the
World
(285)
174
ISO norms:
Comparison between various enterprises around the world.
Applicable to the manufacturing and services industries.
Competitiveness of enterprises linked to the imperative of total quality.
Costs
Negotiated between the provider of the service and the user.
Subject to some arbitrary decree (price fixing such as public
transit).
Commercialization
B Transport Costs
1. Transport Costs and Rates
2. Type of Transport Costs
Geography.
Infrastructure.
Administrative barriers.
How passengers and freight are carried.
Factors
Examples
Geography
Type of product
Packaging, weight,
perishable
Shipping coal
Shipping flowers or wine
Economies of
scale
Shipment size
Trade imbalance
Empty travel
Infrastructure
Capacity, limitations,
operational conditions
The Interstate
Mode
Capacity, limitations,
operational conditions
Competition and
regulation
Tariffs, safety,
ownership
Costs
Zone Change
Fixed Costs
Distance
Transshipment Costs
Rate setting:
Public transit: rates are often fixed and the result of a political decision
where a share of the total costs is subsidized by the society.
Freight transportation and many forms of passenger transportation (e.g.
air transportation): rates are subject to a competitive pressure.
Costs-Insurance-Freight (CIF)
Costs
Freight-on-Board
Cost-Insurance-Freight
Production Costs
Distance
Costs
D1
D2
II
III
Distance
IV
Linehaul costs
Function of the distance over which a unit of freight or passenger
is carried.
Weight is also a cost function when freight is involved.
Commonly exclude transshipment costs.
Fixed Infrastructure
Variable Costs
Examples
Ownership
Mostly public
Mostly private
Lifespan
Short to average (5 to 20
years)
Rate of change
Slow
Rapid redeployment
Competition
Source of comparative
advantages