The thesis examines a number of questions concerning the design, construction, costs and use of Romano-British seagoing and inland waters shipping. In the first part the reasons for the methods of construction for seagoing and coastal vessels, such as the Blackfriars Ship 1, the St. Peter Port Ship and the Barland's Farm Boat, have been investigated. The constructional characteristics of the two ships are massive floors and frames, with the planking fastened only to the floors and frames with heavy clenched iron nails. There is no edge to edge fastening of the planks, with tenons inserted into mortises cut into the edges of the planks, as is normal in the Mediterranean tradition of ship construction in the Roman period. The Romano-British ships also differ from the Scandinavian tradition of clinker building with overlapping planks nailed to each other along their length. It has been concluded that a natural phenomenon, the large tidal range around the British Isles and the northern coasts of Gaul and Germany, had a dominant effect on the design of seagoing vessels. Deep water harbours, such as Portus, Caesar ea Maritima and Alexandria in the Mediterranean, where ships could lie afloat at all times, were neither practicable nor economic with the technology available. At the British ports, such as Dover, London and Chichester, ships had to come in with the high tide, moor to simple wharves at the high tide level, and then settle on the ground as the tide dropped. At the numerous small havens, inlets and estuaries around the British coasts, ships would come in with the tide, settle on a natural or man-made 'hard' as the tide fell, and discharge cargo over the side to carts, pack animals or people. This mode of operation required sturdy ships that could take the ground without damage, and also withstand a certain amount of 'bumping' on the bottom in the transition period from fully afloat to fully aground. The second part of the thesis investigates the cost of building, maintaining and operating various types of vessels. To do this, a new mode for measuring cost, the Basic Economic Unit, or BEU, has been developed. The probable volume of the various types of cargoes carried has been examined. It appears that grain was the dominant cargo in both coastal and overseas traffic. The total cost of building, maintaining and operating the seagoing and inland water shipping was less than one percent of the gross product of Britain, a small cost for an essential service. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

Univ., Diss.--Iaşi, 1995.

La ville d'Abidjan est aujourd'hui confrontée à l'instar de toutes les grandes villes d'Afrique subsaharienne à un défi majeur dans le secteur des transports: une population urbaine en augmentation constante qui exige des moyens de transport appropriés. Cette question faisant l'objet de notre étude est cruciale. Il ne fait aucun doute que la ville d'Abidjan est confrontée à une crise des transports urbains.<p><p>Depuis le début des années 80, Abidjan a connu une dynamique spatiale et une croissance démographique constante. On note à Abidjan une séparation des fonctions, les emplois étant concentrés dans les quartiers au Sud de la ville tandis que le Nord constitue une zone résidentielle. Dans un tel contexte, le défi est donc de savoir quels sont les voies et moyens pour rendre le transport public efficace et durable.<p><p>Cette thèse vise l'accroissement et la diversification de l'offre de transport en commun par l'utilisation du plan d'eau lagunaire pour désengorger les voies terrestres, le développement de moyens de transport alternatifs, la lutte contre la pollution de l'environnement. Elle vise à promouvoir le transport lagunaire de personnes comme une solution aux problèmes de mobilité qui se posent à la population abidjanaise et à susciter un transfert modal d'autres modes de transports — tels que les voitures particulières, les bus, les taxis, les taxis wôrô-wôrôs — vers les bateaux-bus.<p><p>On note actuellement que l'exploitation du plan d'eau lagunaire est encore à l'état embryonnaire malgré la présence de la lagune dans onze des quatorze communes que compte le district d'Abidjan. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished