The Geography of Transport Systems (4^th Ed.)

This expanded and revised fourth edition of The Geography of Transport Systems provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field with a broad overview of its concepts, methods and areas of application. Aimed mainly at an undergraduate audience, it provides an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation and focuses on how the mobility of passengers and freight is linked with geography.

The book is divided in ten chapters, each covering a specific conceptual dimension, including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts, and updated with the latest information available. The fourth edition offers new material on the issues of transport and the economy, city logistics, supply chains, security, energy, the environment, as well as a revised content structure. With over 160 updated photographs, figures and maps, The Geography of Transport Systems presents transportation systems at different scales ranging from global to local and focuses on different contexts such as North America, Europe and East Asia.

This volume is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interested in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering. A companion web site, which contains additional material, has been developed for the book and can be found here: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/

Contents

List of photographs

List of figures

Notes on contributors

Preface

Chapter 1 Transportation and geography

CONCEPTS: 1 What is transport geography?

2 Transportation and space

3 Transportation and commercial geography

4 The geography of transportation networks

CASE STUDY: Strategic maritime passages

Chapter 2 Transportation and the spatial structure

CONCEPTS: 1 Historical geography of transportation: the emergence of mechanized systems

2 Historical geography of transportation: the setting of global systems

3 Transport and spatial organization

4 Transport and location

5 Future transportation

CASE STUDY: Transport corridors

Chapter 3 Transportation, economy and society

CONCEPTS: 1 Transport and economic development

2 Transportation and society

3 Transport costs

4 Transport supply and demand

CASE STUDY: The cruise industry

Chapter 4 Transportation modes

CONCEPTS: 1 Transportation modes, modal competition and modal shift

2 Road transportation

3 Rail Transportation

4 Maritime transportation

5 Air transport

6 Intermodal transportation and containerization

CASE STUDY: High-speed rail systems

Chapter 5 Transportation terminals

CONCEPTS: 1 The function of transport terminals

2 The location of terminals

3 Port terminals

4 Rail terminals

5 Airports

CASE STUDY: Mega airport projects

Chapter 6 International trade and freight distribution

CONCEPTS: 1 Transborder and crossborder transportation

2 Transportation, globalization and international trade

3 Freight transportation and value chains

4 Logistics and freight distribution

CASE STUDY: Inland ports and logistics zones

Chapter 7 Urban transportation

CONCEPTS: 1 Transportation and the urban form

2 Urban land use and transportation

3 Urban mobility

4 Urban transport problems

CASE STUDY: City logistics

Chapter 8 Transport, energy and environment

CONCEPTS: 1 The environmental impacts of transportation

2 Transportation and energy

3 Transport and sustainability

CASE STUDY: Green logistics

Chapter 9 Transport planning and policy

CONCEPTS: 1 The nature of transport policy

2 Transport planning

3 Transport safety and security

4 Transportation and disasters

CASE STUDY: Information technologies and mobility

Chapter 10 Methods in transport geography

1 Methods in transport geography

2 Graph theory: definition and properties

3 Graph theory: measures and indices

4 Geographic Information Systems for Transportation (GIS-T)

5 Transportation and accessibility

6 Network data models

7 Transport technical and economic performance indicators

8 The Gini coefficient

9 Spatial interactions and the gravity model

10 Market area analysis

Conclusion: issues and challenges in transport geography

Glossary

Index

Jean-Paul Rodrigue is Professor in the Department of Global Studies and Geography at Hofstra University, New York.

Claude Comtois is Professor of Geography at the University of Montreal, Canada, and is affiliated with the Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation at the same institution.

Brian Slack is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.