Purpose - The thesis aims to provide a framework of measuring the performance of pur-chasing consortia humanitarian sector. The performance measurement seeks to identify the competitive advantages of being a member of purchasing consortia during purchasing activities of transportation ervices. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a qualitative study with de-ductive and explanatory approach. Semi-structured interviews with experts within the humanitarian sector have been conducted to gain necessary and credible data. Findings – It has been identified that purchasing consortia do not mutually operate physical purchasing activities. However, the consortia performance measurement framework, derived from the resource-based view, illustrates that being a member gen-erates the capabilities of decreased purchasing complexity, learning capabilities and ca-pacity sharing. These capabilities have a significant impact on the purchasing process for transportation services and lead to the competitive advantages of (1) having access to extensive knowledge, (2) reducing operational efforts, (3) reducing lead-time and (4) improving learning procedures. Research limitations/implications – As the literature on humanitarian logistics is still in its infancy, further applications from the commercial sector were considered to strengthen the results of the framework. Practical implications - The extent of collaboration of purchasing consortia indicates that managers of HOs are able to gain significant expertise and offers advantageous opportunities in handling purchasing activities in humanitarian logistics. The implications cover strategic as well as operational issues. Originality/value – The thesis gives an insight about practical purchasing operations of existing consortia and detects previously unknown aspects within the literature of humanitarian logistics.

The objective of this study was to develop a tool for engineers and researchers to understand the underlying logic of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) procedures. The HCM offers a collection of methodologies and techniques for estimating the capacity and evaluation of the level of service for highway, street and transit facilities (HCM 2000). Mathcad worksheets were developed to replicate the computational procedures of five chapters of the HCM. The principal topics addressed are advantages of the Mathcad worksheets over existing implementations of the HCM, challenges associated with the implementation, and changes and additions made to the format of the HCM worksheets reflecting capabilities and limitations of Mathcad. These dynamic documents allow the user to easily explore the sensitivity of the procedures to varying equations, relationships and input parameters. Because the Mathcad worksheets display information in a manner similar to the HCM, most users will find the worksheets straightforward to use and interpret. As such the Mathcad worksheets offer better transparency than other implementations of the HCM procedures.

Logistics and supply chain problems arising in the context of intermodal transportation and less-than-truckload (LTL) network design typically require commodities to be consolidated and shipped via the most economical route to their destinations. Traditionally, these problems have been modelled using network design or hub-and- spoke approaches. In a network design problem, one is given the network and flow requirements between the origin and destination pairs (commodities), and the objective is to route the flows over the network so as to minimize the sum of the fixed charge incurred in using arcs and routing costs. However, there are possible benefits, due to economies-of-scale in transportation, that are not addressed in standard network design models. On the other hand, hub location problems are motivated by potential economies-of-scale in transportation costs when loads are consolidated and shipped together over a completely connected hub network. However, in a hub location problem, the assignment of a node to a hub is independent of the commodities originating at, or destined to, this node. Such an indiscriminate assignment may not be suitable for all commodities originating at a particular node because of their different destinations. Problems arising in the area of LTL transportation, intermodal transportation and package routing generally have characteristics such as economies- of-scale in transportation costs in addition to the requirement of commodity-based routing. Obviously, the existing network design and hub location-based models are not directly suitable for these applications. In this dissertation, we investigate the development of models and solution algorithms for problems in the areas of LTL and intermodal transportation as well as in the freight forwarders industry. We develop models and solution methods to address strategic, tactical and operational level decision issues and show computational results. This research provides new insights into these application areas and new solution methods therein. The solution algorithms developed here also contribute to the general area of discrete optimization, particularly for problems with similar characteristics.

Monetizing gas has now become a high priority issue for many countries. Natural gas is a much cleaner fuel than oil and coal especially for electricity generation. Approximately 40 percent of the world's natural gas reserves remain unusable because of lack of economic technology. Gas produced with oil poses a challenge of being transported and is typically flared or re-injected into the reservoir. These are gas transportation issues we now face. Gas hydrate may be a viable means of capturing, storing and transporting stranded and associated gas. For example, stranded gas in Trinidad could be converted to gas hydrates and transported to the islands of the Caribbean. This study will seek to address some of the limitations from previous studies on transporting natural gas as a hydrate while focusing on small scale transportation of natural gas to the Caribbean Islands. This work proposes a workflow for capturing, storing and transporting gas in the hydrate form, particularly for Caribbean situations where there are infrastructural constraints such as lack of pipelines. The study shows the gas hydrate value chain for transportation of 5 MMscf/d of natural gas from Trinidad to Jamaica. The analysis evaluated the water required for hydrate formation, effect of composition on hydrate formation, the energy balance of the process, the time required for formation, transportation and dissociation and preliminary economics. The overall energy requirement of the process which involves heating, cooling and expansion is about 15-20 percent of the energy of the gas transported in hydrate form. The time estimated for the overall process is 20–30 hrs. The estimated capital cost to capture and transport 5 MMscf/d from Trinidad to Jamaica is about US$ 30 million. The composition of the gas sample can affect the conditions of formation, heating value and the expansion process. In summary, there is great potential for transporting natural gas by gas hydrate on a small scale based on the proposed hydrate work flow. This study did not prove commerciality at this time, however, some of the limitations require further evaluations and these include detailed modeling of the formation time, dissociation time and heat transfer capabilities.

The purpose of this thesis is to quantify the economic costs associated with traffic crashes for 83 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States and compare those costs to that of congestion. This was done by collecting injury and fatality data for each area and multiplying those by economic cost estimates for each developed by the FHWA. The findings of this analysis show that the economic cost of traffic crashes exceeds the economic costs of congestion in every metropolitan area studied. These results indicate that transportation safety deserves similar consideration to that of traffic congestion when allocation transportation funds.

No description available.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-99).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 158-162).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-204).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-144).