Railroads have been subject to federal regulation since 1887. Due to the development of competing modes of transportation and changes in types of products being shipped, regulation began to impede efficiency and viability of firms, leading to partial deregulation of the industry in 1980. Partial deregulation allowed railroads to reduce costs, notably through mergers and line abandonment, which were aggressively pursued following deregulation and led to dramatic efficiency gains. However, concerns remain over increased consolidation, lack of competition in the industry, and the ability of firms to continue to realize efficiency gains. This dissertation investigates more recent developments in the rail industry with an eye towards regulation's effect and role. I begin with a study into the markups of price over marginal cost and elasticities of scale in the rail industry. Scale elasticities provide information on where firms are operating on their average cost curves, and markups provide a more theoretically appealing method of examining pricing behavior than the revenue-to-variable-cost measure currently used by regulators. I extend previously developed methods to identify markups and scales for each firm and in each year. I find prices well in excess of marginal cost, and evidence firms are operating near minimum efficient scale, indicating efficiency gains from deregulation may be fully realized. I then present a study that examines productivity changes in the rail industry and the role of technological change. I extend stochastic frontier frameworks to allow productivity and the state of technology to evolve flexibly through time and vary across firms. I find firms turn towards technological innovation to realize productivity gains when other channels previously offered by deregulation are not available. I finish with a study of allocative errors in the rail industry. I again extend a stochastic frontier model to include differences in production across firms and allow allocative errors to be correlated with competitive pressures. I find that incorporating flexibility into the description of firm production is crucial for obtaining unbiased estimates of allocative errors, overcapitalization is prevalent in the rate-regulated rail industry, and additional competition does not appear to reduce inefficiency. This dissertation includes unpublished co-authored material.

D.Com. (Transport Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Traditionally, international boundaries have been regarded as barriers to the evolution of transportation networks. Numerous examples of the disruptive influence of borders on travel routes have been documented in the literature. Does such a pattern always occur? This thesis is concerned with a railnet which evolved in close proximity to an international boundary, but which for the most part appeared able to develop with little regard for the boundary as a barrier. This railnet is that of the Kootenay district of southeastern British Columbia and the adjacent United States. An investigation is made of the major elements which best explain the nature of this network's evolution. They are discovered to include a rich natural resource endowment, rivalry between railway companies, and private and government decision makers, but not the international boundary. Comparison is made with the railnet of another area, similar apart from the absence of such a border. The nature of private and government decision making is also examined. Each step in turn provides additional evidence to indicate that the boundary was not a major factor, certainly not a significant barrier, in the evolution of the Kootenay railnet. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this work is to present a detailed and comprehensive study of the development of the major Mexican railways from their beginnings down to the year 1911. The choice of this subject was conditioned by the awareness that no such work existed and the hope that such a work, besides its intrinsic interest, would prove a useful basis for a study of the wider implications of the development of railways on Mexico's economic and social life. Such a study is beyond my resources in time, material and experience, and so I have confined myself to describing the concessions, construction and operation of the railways themselves. There is no detailed general history of the Mexican railways available in English. Such works as exist deal with one specific aspect of the railways or give a very superficial outline of the overall development, or else approach the subject purely from the viewpoint of the foreign investor. The amount of material, both primary and secondary, available in Spanish is, of course, much larger, but the only historical work which is both detailed and comprehensive is the series of chapters on the railways written by Sr. Francisco Caldeón for Daniel Cosío Villegas's monumental "Historia moderna de México". These chapters contain a wealth of information and I here acknowledge the great debt which I owe them in the preparation of this thesis. However, Sr. Calderón deals with all the railways in chronological periods which makes it difficult to follow the development of individual undertakings. Therefore, I have attempted to discuss the railways as entities and, for the purposes of this thesis, I have selected the pioneering F. C. Mexicano and the four major companies which were consolidated in 1908 to form the basis of the Ferro-carriles Nacionales de México. These represent the main railways built prior to the Revolution. Thus, after a brief introduction to 19th-century Mexico, the first chapter describes the protracted building of the F. C. Mexicano line to Veracruz and its subsequent development. The second chapter relates the battle for the concessions and the construction and operation of the lines to the U. S. border, the F. C. Central, F. C. Nacional and F. C. Internacional, whilst the third chapter deals with the building of the F. C. Interaceánico line to Veracruz and some of the problems faced by the railways. The fourth chapter describes the formation of the Ferro-carriles Nacionales de México and, finally, the conclusion summarizes and sums up the preceding chapters. There then follow a bibliography and an appendix containing tables and graphs relating to the railways under consideration. Where primary materials have not been available to me, I have relied heavily on Sr. Calderón's work, as mentioned above, cross-checking and supplementing it, where possible, from other sources. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the dates and figures given but the usual reservations regarding Latin American statistics must be made here also; many potentially useful statistics have had to be discarded because one source fails to correspond with another (and sometimes they conflict with themselves!) All the railways, being American or British-owned, had titles both in English and Spanish, but for the sake of consistency, only the Spanish names have been used in the text of this work. Similarly, all distances have been given in kilometres (1 km. = 0.62137 or approximately 5/8 mile) but to avoid excessively complicated exchange calculations, bearing in mind the fluctuating exchange rates, I have left money sums in the currencies in which they have come to me. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This thesis is a study of railway relocation and subsequent commercial redevelopment in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The primary purpose of the study is to test the hypothesis that railway relocation in a western Canadian city could prove beneficial to such a City in terms of community objectives. The City of Saskatoon is utilized as a case study. A secondary purpose, upon validation of the hypothesis, is to attempt the use of Saskatoon's experience as a bench-mark in determining the feasibility of railway relocation in other Saskatchewan cities. In order to place the City in its proper historical and developmental context, the history of Saskatoon is briefly traced from its origin in 1882 to the present. This review pictures Saskatoon as a dynamic urban center with a relatively bright future. A detailed review of events and negotiations leading up to the joint decision by the City and the C.N.R. to relocate railway facilities from downtown Saskatoon indicates that the primary community objectives involved were consolidation of the downtown area and improvement of access to the downtown area. These and other objectives are discussed in detail and analyzed in terms of their relevance and where possible, in terms of the magnitude of costs associated with achievement of a particular objective. The impact of the commercial development proposed for construction in the area vacated by the C.N.R. is demonstrated in terms of its effect on the supply of downtown retail space as opposed to the projected demand. On the basis of certain explicit assumptions, this analysis predicts an excess supply of retail floor space for a period of eight years. Quantifiable costs and benefits to the City attributable to relocation are compared with the resulting conclusion that, on the basis of current estimates, benefits accruing from relocation will yield a 9½% return on the City's investment by 1984. A subjective evaluation of non-quantifiable costs and benefits results in the further conclusion that benefits will again exceed costs. The aggregate conclusion, which validates the hypothesis, is that railway relocation in Saskatoon will prove beneficial to the City in terms of community objectives. The key factors which led to consideration of railway relocation in Saskatoon and which made the project viable were the dynamic nature of the city; the relative location of railway facilities; demand for retail space, and the location of railway rights-of-way relative to the location of required traffic facilities. These factors are tested against four other cities in Saskatchewan; Regina, Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, and Swift Current. Of the four, only Regina is consistantly comparable to Saskatoon, leading to the conclusion that detailed investigation of railway relocation from downtown Regina is warranted.It is further concluded that railway relocation from other Canadian cities might be equally feasible, and certainly worthy of further study. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Before economic development can take place in a country, there must be a minimal amount of social and economic infrastructure. Good transportation is regarded as one of the prerequisites to rapid economic growth. To be effective, however, it must be related to needs of the country concerned. In the early development of Tanzania, transportation facilities were built mostly for strategic and administrative purposes. Economic motives were secondary, and paramount only in cases where there was hope for immediate returns, like the exploitation of a new mine. The only other economic reason was to facilitate trade, in raw materials and manufactured goods 'between the metropolitan power, other industrialized countries, and Tanganyika. It was also believed that the provision of railways would lead to rapid economic development. However, the provision of railways in the hope that they would generate economic growth was unsuccessful. Instead, railways became a burden to the country because they operated at a loss and had to be subsidized. At the same time, the loans borrowed to build the railways had to be amortized at an annual rate of between 4-4-1/2%. Thus, the railways proved too costly a mode for initiating economic growth. The "cost of capital" used to build railways was totally beyond the means of the country in its early stages of economic growth. It crippled the financial and capital availability for economic development in general. Not only had the country limited capital for development, but other disadvantages, such as being a Mandate Territory, which resulted in further flight of capital. Thus, the total amount of capital used to repay the railway debt before 1948, diverted capital which should have been invested in other sectors of the economy to establish a base for future development . It was at this stage that roads came to be preferred as a less costly mode than railways for opening up new areas for development. The policy adopted was to provide a "country-wide Low-Cost" road system. First, this policy placed too much emphasis on building trunk roads at the expense of feeder roads. Second, it overlooked the geographical characteristics of the country. Finally, the roads which were built were of too low a standard. The net result was the road system did not provide effective links to the rural areas, the mainstay of the population and economy of the country. Also, areas with high growth potential had insufficient number of roads, while less prosperous areas were oversupplied with them. But, even more so, the roads deteriorated very fast with the rapid increase in volume of heavy vehicles and traffic. Consequently, maintenance costs rose very rapidly, calling for increased expenditure. This limited the amount of money which could be spent in further road construction, such as the building of rural feeder roads. Increased maintenance costs diverted capital resources from other sectors of the economy, thereby inhibiting balanced economic growth. In contrast, other factors, though accounting for less capital investment, have been very crucial in the economic growth of the country. The most important factor has been world prices for export crops, especially that of sisal. This crop became important after the fall of rubber prices at the beginning of this century, and not with the building of the railways to which it is usually attributed. Since then, fluctuation in the world price of sisal has affected the revenue of the country and levels of expenditure on new capital works. During the Korean boom, when prices for this crop were favourable, it provided sufficient revenue and encouraged increased expenditure in capital works, in which road development ranked very high. Other factors which accounted for a stable growth include the centralization of marketing of cash crops through cooperatives and marketing boards. The establishment of these institutions made possible the payment of high prices during years of unfavourable world prices from funds accumulated when world prices were good. This has encouraged increased agricultural production, resulting in a rise of income to the farmers and hence demand for consumer items, especially imports. These institutions also undertake to process, auction, and ship the crops of the farmers to markets overseas, in return for a minimal charge on the farmers' income. This has enabled the subsistence farmer to produce his crops at a much more economical basis than if he was on his own. Despite deficiencies in the transportation system, the economy of the country grew. But the levels of growth achieved have remained low because of inadequacies in other sectors of the economy. In agriculture, the continued use of primitive methods of production has been the major limiting factor in increased levels of production. The failure to take cognizance of these problems in the past has limited the effectiveness of transportation on economic development and has resulted in an unbalanced growth. The impact of transportation has also been limited because it depended on imports for equipment and other essentials. A local transport industry, as in the case of the developed countries, is still far from being established. This has been confined to railway repair shops, garages and gas stations. The above are the findings from the examination of the thesis of this study, in that: Rail and Road transportation as initially developed, and despite increased investment in the facilities of these two modes, was not as conducive to economic development as compared to other factors accounting for levels of economic growth achieved. In view of this, and of limited capital resources for development, increased investment and expenditure on rail and road transportation diverted scarce resources from other essential sectors of the economy, such as agriculture. Also, because the tangible benefits from rail and road transportation were less than its costs, the opportunity cost of invested capital was high. This was the case for capital invested, in railways before 1948, and in roads thereafter. This study also points to the fact that the role transportation can play in the economic development of a developing country is different from that experienced in the developed countries. In addition, in the light of growth based on planned development, a sectorial approach to transportation is not enough. Transportation has to be evaluated in terms of how it can assist in rapid fulfilment of the goals of the Five Year Plan. In making decisions on future investments in the economy, priority should be given to those sectors of the economy which are central in enabling the achievement of goals of the Five Year Plan. Within the transport sector, decisions on further investments should be based on a proper evaluation of transport needs of the country. It should also be guided by the role transportation has played in the past to assist rapid growth. For example, a closer examination and assessment of past performances of rail and roads in the development of the country will provide guidelines for a transportation system to service increased production. It will also enable the planner to discover where the deficiency lies in the economy as a whole. The inadequacy of a transportation system may be due to lack of other facilities, such as storage, or a processing plant as has been the case in some parts of Tanzania. In future, organization of transport, especially rail and road, should be pur-sued through policies which will facilitate coordination and integration of the two modes. Another immediate need is a transportation plan to assist in developing a well balanced transport system. In view of the formation of the East African Community, this should be done both at National (micro) and Regional (macro) levels. A National Transport Board should be formed to carry out the above functions. The issue of whether to develop rail or road as the most suitable mode for further development should also be properly evaluated. It would appear, however, that both modes have a role to play because of their complementary nature, the geographical characteristic of the country, and in assisting the formation of a Regional Economic Group including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ruanda, Urundi, Zambia, Somalia and Ethiopa. Transportation should also be made an integral part of the "Ujamaa Village" planning process. Finally, there should be continuing research in appraising transportation problems in developing countries, so as to establish a theory for transport research and development. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This study investigated the relationship between use of Light Rapid or Light Rail (LRT) by persons with severe visual impairments and independence in orientation and mobility. Use of the LRT poses special problems to blind users and requires skill in mobility. The premise of the study was that blind persons who felt confident in travelling independently were more likely to use the LRT than those who do not. The study also examined the difficulties blind persons experienced in LRT use. The subjects were 63 persons between the ages of 19 and 65 who responded to a survey questionnaire. Thirty five of these individuals were male and 25 were female. All the subjects were registered as legally blind with the C.N.I.B. The range of visual loss included total blindness, light perception, tunnel vision, central vision loss and low vision. The results indicated that orientation and mobility training on the LRT system would resolve many of the difficulties that users of the systems encountered. Modification of the systems by transit companies to make the systems more easily accessible to visually impaired travellers are suggested. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

In the absence to date of substantial published material on Canadian railway marketing, this thesis represents an initial overview study of the subject. It examines the origins, development overtime and current status of the freight marketing organizations and practices of CN and CP Rail. The first part of the thesis is an examination of the post-second World War economic and regulatory environment and developments in the CN and CP Rail organization and practices of the time. Evidence indicates that the appearance of railway marketing was a response to post-war commercial competitive forces. The second part consists of a discussion of today's integrated CN and CP Rail marketing organizations and traces the development from the earliest forms of railway marketing. The analytic framework for this discussion is basic marketing theory. Evidence from the analysis suggests that Canadian railway marketing has developed in a similar manner to that experienced in other industries and reflected in marketing theory. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The transportation network of British Columbia is susceptible to service disruptions due to catastrophic events such as: earthquakes, rockslides, snowslides, and floods. Such service disruptions would be in the form of closures of links between population centres. A method of assigning probabilities of failure to network links was used to undertake a reliability analysis of the rail network of the Southern Mainland of British Columbia, This reliability estimate is then used to recommend changes in the physical makeup of the network in order to enhance it's flexibility (redundancy). A cost analysis of these proposed links was performed in order to identify the most cost-effective links. The reliability analysis was again performed to show the improvement gained by these physical changes. Also included was an analysis of the Second Narrows Hail Bridge closure (From 12 October 1979 to 3 March 1980) and the consequences on the rail network of the province, as well as a review of emergency operating procedures and recommendations for further study. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate

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