This report captures ways in which policy makers and senior officials in railway organizations from emerging economies can accelerate modal shift to rail. Such officials, as well as the general public, aspire for more freight to be moved by rail. The environmental and societal benefits of such a shift are compelling. And yet investment in railways is often not followed by a corresponding increase in freight moved by rail. This report highlights the fact that, in a world of changing global supply chains and logistics, the approach to regaining modal share needs to be different. The expectation that lower cost and efficient rail service will automatically lead to modal shift from road to rail has not been a reality in most emerging economies. Modern railways focus on understanding the logistics of targeted freight and positioning rail transport services as part of an overall logistics system aimed at meeting the needs of customers.

This report captures ways in which policy makers and senior officials in railway organizations from emerging economies can accelerate modal shift to rail. Such officials, as well as the general public, aspire for more freight to be moved by rail. The environmental and societal benefits of such a shift are compelling. And yet investment in railways is often not followed by a corresponding increase in freight moved by rail. This report highlights the fact that, in a world of changing global supply chains and logistics, the approach to regaining modal share needs to be different. The expectation that lower cost and efficient rail service will automatically lead to modal shift from road to rail has not been a reality in most emerging economies. Modern railways focus on understanding the logistics of targeted freight and positioning rail transport services as part of an overall logistics system aimed at meeting the needs of customers.

The passage of the Staggers Rail Act in 1980 led brought a renaissance to the freight rail industry. In the decade following, economists documented the effects of the Act on a variety of important economic metrics including prices, costs, and productivity. Over the preceding years, and with the return of the industry to more stable footing, attention to the industry by economists faded. The lack of attention, however, has not been due to a dearth of ongoing economic and policy issues that continue to confront the industry. In this volume, we begin to rectify this inattention. Rather than retread older analyses or provide yet another look at the consequences of Staggers, we assemble a collection of ten chapters in four sections that collectively provide fresh and up-to-date analyses of the economic issues and policy challenges the industry faces: the first section sets the context through foundational discussion of freight rail; the second section highlights the role of freight rail in an increasingly interrelated economy; the third section examines industry structure and scope in freight rail; and the fourth section assesses current regulatory challenges that confront freight rail. This book will be of great value to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students interested in the fields of freight rail economics and policy, transportation, business history, and regulatory economics.

The increasingly busy lives of people in modern society cause a high dependence on the transportation sector. Traffic congestion, road maintenance, and a myriad of other problems have led stakeholders to seriously examine alternatives to traditional road traveling. Emerging Challenges and Opportunities of High Speed Rail Development on Business and Society is an authoritative reference source on the promising aspects of high speed railway transportation to supplement road travel. Highlighting empirical research, implementations plans, and future opportunities, this book is ideally designed for government officials, researchers, upper-level students, and technology developers working in the field of transportation.

In an increasingly globalised world, despite reductions in costs and time, transportation has become even more important as a facilitator of economic and human interaction; this is reflected in technical advances in transportation systems, increasing interest in how transportation interacts with society and the need to provide novel approaches to understanding its impacts. This has become particularly acute with the impact that Covid-19 has had on transportation across the world, at local, national and international levels. Encyclopedia of Transportation, Seven Volume Set - containing almost 600 articles - brings a cross-cutting and integrated approach to all aspects of transportation from a variety of interdisciplinary fields including engineering, operations research, economics, geography and sociology in order to understand the changes taking place. Emphasising the interaction between these different aspects of research, it offers new solutions to modern-day problems related to transportation. Each of its nine sections is based around familiar themes, but brings together the views of experts from different disciplinary perspectives. Each section is edited by a subject expert who has commissioned articles from a range of authors representing different disciplines, different parts of the world and different social perspectives. The nine sections are structured around the following themes: Transport Modes; Freight Transport and Logistics; Transport Safety and Security; Transport Economics; Traffic Management; Transport Modelling and Data Management; Transport Policy and Planning; Transport Psychology; Sustainability and Health Issues in Transportation. Some articles provide a technical introduction to a topic whilst others provide a bridge between topics or a more future-oriented view of new research areas or challenges. The end result is a reference work that offers researchers and practitioners new approaches, new ways of thinking and novel solutions to problems. All-encompassing and expertly authored, this outstanding reference work will be essential reading for all students and researchers interested in transportation and its global impact in what is a very uncertain world. Provides a forward looking and integrated approach to transportation Updated with future technological impacts, such as self-driving vehicles, cyber-physical systems and big data analytics Includes comprehensive coverage Presents a worldwide approach, including sets of comparative studies and applications

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Innovation is a pivotal driving force behind economic growth. Technological capability deepens and diversifies industrial activity, which fundamentally enhances growth potential. Consequently, failure to build effective technological capability can lead to slow long-term economic growth. This book synthesizes and interprets existing knowledge on technology upgrading failures in order to better understand the challenges of technology upgrading in emerging economies. The objective is to bring together diverse evidence on three major dimensions of technology upgrading: paths of technology upgrading, structural changes in the nature of technology upgrading, and the issues of technology transfer and technology upgrading. Knowledge on these three dimensions is synthesized at the firm, sector, and macro levels across different countries and world macroregions. Compared to the challenges and uncertainties facing emerging economies, our understanding of technology upgrading is sparse, unsystematic, and scattered. The recent growth slowdown in many emerging economies, often known as the middle-income trap, has reinforced the importance of understanding the technology upgrading challenges they experience. While our understanding of these issues from the 1980s and 1990s is relatively more systematised, the more recent changes that took place during the globalization and proliferation of global value chains, and the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, have not been explored and compared synthetically. The current effects of COVID-19, geopolitical struggles, and the growing concern around environmental sustainability add significant complexity to an already problematic situation. The time is ripe to take stock of our existing knowledge on processes of technology upgrading in emerging economies and make further inroads in research on this crucial issue.

This volume describes the unique development of Central Asia as defined by its landlocked geography. Particular attention is paid to the achievements and challenges of the region’s post-Soviet economic and political transformation, as well as to its relationship with the participants in the New Great Game – Russia, China and the West. Located as it is in the geographical centre of booming Asia, and with the opportunity to become a key logistics bridge connecting the world’s largest economies, Central Asia is well placed for rapid development. However, the region faces a range of complex problems that are explained and analysed in the volume. The Eurasian powers that encircle Central Asia look certain to become the engines of global economic growth, but how will this affect the region? Will Central Asia join the powerful locomotive of history, or will it remain on the sidelines?