The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effect of inland navigation user charges on barge wheat movements on both the entire inland waterway system and on particular segments of the system. In order to accomplish these objectives, transshipment models were constructed, examining three wheat varieties: hard red spring, hard red winter, and soft red winter.
The models permitted basically two types of movements from producing to consuming areas: direct movements or movements through river transshipment points. This allowed the models to choose between barge transportation and competitive modes. Consuming regions were comprised of domestic milling points and foreign countries. Exports to any given point were allowed to move through any of several U.S. ports, depending upon relative transport costs. This endowed the models with a great deal of flexibility in the export sector, which is critically important for barge transportation of wheat.
Data used in the models included 1970-71 wheat production and consumption, and 1975 barge and rail rates, truck costs, and handling costs for each mode. User charges were based on 1974 operation and maintenance costs of the inland waterway system and 1974 barge ton-miles.
Base solutions (i.e. without user charges) were obtained for each of the models, and then each was run with user charges recovering from 25 to 500 percent of annual O & M costs. The effect of uniform charges and charges specific to each waterway were examined.
Major results included: (1) few wheat movements were significantly affected by uniform charges recovering 100% of costs, with a moderate reduction in total barge wheat traffic; (2) specific charges seriously reduced wheat traffic on certain high cost rivers (such as the Missouri and the Arkansas), but also only brought about a moderate reduction of wheat movements on the total system. General characteristics of areas susceptible to user charges were pointed out, and an attempt was made to indicate wheat movements potentially to be affected by user charges, if other relevant factors were allowed to change. / Ph. D.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/87330 |
| Date | January 1977 |
| Creators | Binkley, James K. |
| Contributors | Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Economics |
| Publisher | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation, Text |
| Format | xi, 277 pages, 2 unnumbered leaves, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | OCLC# 40244527 |
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