1,721,088 research outputs found
Railway performance—how does Britain compare?
No full textGiven the major changes that have occurred to the organization of Britain's railways during 1994, this seems an appropriate time to compare their performance with those of the rest of western Europe. This article reports on work which repeated the major comparative study carried out by the authors in 1979. At that time, British Rail had relatively high labour productivity and a high degree of cost coverage, but high prices, low train loads and a low’ market share. In general these characteristics remain the case, with a further major improvement in productivity and financial performance in the 1980s, but a faster loss of market share than elsewhere in western Europe
Decline increasing: normality declining
Get PDFInformation is the currency of scientific pursuit, and its immediate access is a presumed universal right to today's students. No longer must the information-seeker spend hours, days and even weeks trawling through Current Contents, as all information is now freely available at the click of a mouse. The fruitless trudge, searching for obscure journals that your library doesn't even take, and the fun to be had from sending uninitiated students on such useless errands, are both sadly gone forever. We are all part of the universal information network, and we have never had it so good.& more..
Appraisal of rail investment projects: recent British experience
No full textThere has long been conflict over the degree to which railways should follow commercial or social investment criteria. This paper outlines the components of a comprehensive social cost-benefit analysis of railway investment, and then describes the current approach in Britain. British Rail investment proposals are subject to a purely financial appraisal, although in the subsidized sectors of the railway this is subject to the proviso that a ‘broadly comparable’ level of service should be maintained. Local authorities and private operators are able to apply for a central government grant towards the cost of schemes they sponsor. But grant is only payable in respect of external benefits—that is, benefits other than to public transport users. Sponsors are also expected to seek contributions from private developers wherever possible. The difficulties to which this approach leads are discussed, and illustrated with two case studies of actual schemes. In one, it appears that failing to consider disbenefits to bus operators (and in turn to users of bus services) could lead to investments being undertaken which are not justified. In the other, a scheme which yields a high Net Present Value could not go ahead, in the form that we evaluated, because there is no way of recouping enough of the user benefits as revenue. Both are examples of the sort of distorting effect on decision-making the current regime may have
Risk and reward in rail contracting [In special issue: Reforms in Public Transport]
No full textThis workshop considered the role of risks and rewards in rail transport by considering evidence on the impacts of industry structure, franchising and infrastructure charges. A schema for the allocation of risks and rewards was developed, which indicated that strategic risks should be borne by authorities and operational risks by operators, but that tactical risks were more difficult to allocate and appropriate reward mechanisms more difficult to design. The extent to which these difficulties can be addressed by competitive tendering and alternatives such as trusting partnerships and negotiated performance based contracts was considered
Bus deregulation: ten years on foreign summaries
No full textThis paper identifies the principal areas of disagreement in the bus policy debate of 1984–85, and reviews the outcome of bus deregulation against that background. It is concluded that the commercial bus market is imperfectly contestable. Entry may occur where the incumbent is inefficient, where the incumbent is efficient but weak enough to be supplanted, or simply through over-optimism. Incumbents deter entry by tightly controlling costs and by not leaving profitable gaps in service. Merger and acquisition is normally a better strategy than active competition; the tendency to merger has proved stronger than was recognized in the debate. In considering market performance, it is necessary in principle to distinguish between the effects of privatization, subsidy withdrawal, tendering and the abolition of the route licensing system, while recognizing that they interrelate in a complex way. Operating costs have fallen much more sharply than the opponents of deregulation expected. Service levels have risen, but so have real fares. Patronage has fallen faster since deregulation than its historic trend, leaving cost per passenger journey little changed. However, the tendering regime in London has performed much better than full deregulation, with similar (and continuing) reductions in operating costs, little change in patronage and a significant reduction in cost per passenger. Though it may not achieve all the dynamic benefits of full deregulation, tendering avoids wasting resources in competitive battles, offers the opportunity to balance fares and service policies efficiently, and avoids the loss of consumer confidence associated with instability. Finally, the loss of the ability to use local bus services as an instrument of urban planning policy is now recognized as important; here too a tender or franchise regime has the edge over full deregulation
The Franchising of Passenger Rail Services in Britain
No full textFollowing the 1993 Railways Act, British Rail's passenger business was spilt into 25 train operating units, which have been privatised by a process of franchising. This paper will review the franchising experience to date. First, the results of 38 in-depth interviews with potential bidders for the passenger businesses will be described. Secondly, a hypothetical bidding game, based on a series of Stated Preference experiments undertaken by our sample of potential bidders, will be described. A model has been established which determines managers' preferences with respect to contract size and length, exclusivity, and the degree of regulatory control. Given assumptions concerning the degree of competition for rail franchises and bidding behaviour, some predictions are made about the likely magnitude of winning bids and these predictions are validated against actual bids.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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