TRANSPORT SERVICES IN THE 21ST CENTURY: SEAMLESS MARKET OR CHOICELESS CHURNING?

i. Growing efficiency and falling costs of passenger and freight transport services have been major factors underlying the increasing globalization of the world economy and the widespread welfare gains it has yielded. ii. To help them respond to the pressures they face from globalization, the transport sector's customers are now demanding creation of a Seamless Transport market, in which national and modal boundaries neither delay movements nor hinder the choice of the most appropriate route/mode combination for the movement required. iii. Liberalization of national transport markets, to permit easy entry and exit, and open competition on the basis of costs that reflect externalities as well as market values, is partially underway in many countries. It has yielded good initial results, and needs to be deepened and extended. iv. A major thrust of the coming generation will be the extension of open markets for transport services to the regional and international level. v. Development of the Seamless Transport Market will also be assisted and supported by deepening, and wider spread, of the integrated "logistics" approach to management of movements and inventories that has had so much impact in Japan and the USA. vi. Growing inclusion of hundreds of millions of people in the world economy through electronic communications will increase pressures for reduction of their physical isolation. While transport services to them will not achieve the degree of seamlessness possible on developing countries' major routes, much can be done to improve their physical access: improved law and order, better maintenance of basic infrastructure, and promotion of competition in service provision. vii. The sea-change that has been underway almost throughout the world from direct governmental management of transport infrastructure to regulation and supervision of private-sector fulfillment of these responsibilities will go on spreading and deepening. Governments will continue, however, to carry main responsibility for most road networks and many multimodal facilities. viii. The pace of change in transport promises to be no less in the coming decades than over the past twenty years, and in many developing countries in should be greater. It is important for countries to promote wide discussion of the likely broad directions of change and how they could best be applied in local circumstances. When major labor adjustment comes into prospect, extensive management-labor interaction should be promoted from the earliest opportunity.

• Record URL:
  http://www.kas.de/upload/dokumente/megacities/Transport_21Jahrhundert.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  World Bank

  1818 H Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20433
• Authors:
  • Willoughby, C
• Publication Date: 2000-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 28 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Access; Communications; Competition; Costs; Developing countries; Earth; Economics; Electronics; Externalities; Freight service; Globalization; Governments; Infrastructure; International transportation; Labor; Laws; Logistics; Maintenance; Management; Markets; Multimodal transportation; Passenger service; Private enterprise; Regional transportation; Regulation; Routes
• Uncontrolled Terms: Seamless transport market
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Aviation; Economics; Finance; Freight Transportation; Highways; Law; Maintenance and Preservation; Marine Transportation; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; Society; I10: Economics and Administration; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00807015
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: TWU-33
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 7 2001 12:00AM