Topic: Transportation Firms Provide Services
Speaker：Prof. Talley Wayne Kenneth, Old Dominion University
Time: 2020/11/25 13:30-15:00 (GMT+8) 中国标准时间
Tencent Meeting ID: 612 752 717
Abstract:
1. A freight transportation firm differs from a manufacturing firm that produces a physical product at a single location whereas a freight transportation firm provides a service of transporting shipper cargo from an origin location to a destination location.
2. For a freight transportation service to occur both the user of the freight transportation service and the provider of the freight transportation service must be involved in its provision. That is to say, the shipper (the user) must be willing to provide cargo to the freight transportation firm for transport from and the freight transportation firm (the provider) must be willing to transport the cargo received from the shipper from an origin location to a destination location.
3. Services have four characteristics that distinguish them from physical products:
a) A service is intangible – it cannot be seen, touched, smelt or tasted when provided (as opposed to a physical product when produced).
b) A service is heterogenous since its quality can vary when provided (as opposed to a physical product whose quality should not vary when produced).
c) A service is perishable – i.e., a service cannot be saved if not used when provided. For example, when a freight ship departs a port with cargo for another port, this freight trip between the two ports cannot be saved for the transport cargo in the future between the two ports.
d) A service has the characteristic of simultaneity between the user of a service and the provider of a service, i.e., the user of a service and the provider of a service together create the service. For example, In the provision of freight transportation service, the shipper provides cargo to the freight transportation firm to provide freight transportation service for his cargo and the freight transportation firm provides resources to transport the cargo received from the shipper. If either the shipper or the freight transportation service firm provider of freight transportation service is not willing to do so, a freight transportation service will not occur. However, in the production of a physical product, only the producer of the physical product is involved in its production).
4. Qualities of freight transportation services have been described in the transportation literature as the operating options of freight transportation firms. The operating options, for example, include, for example: a) speed of movement in the transportation of cargo, b) frequency of freight transportation service (i.e., how often a transportation service is provided over a given route), c) reliability of freight transportation service (i.e., adhering to deliver schedules) and d) likelihood that the cargo will be damaged or lost while being transported, etc.
5. Freight transportation service has often been measured in ton-miles – where a ton-mile is the multiplication of a ton cargo being transported one mile. However, the ton-mile is a problematic measure of freight transportation service when used to investigate the costs of transport freight transportation services, since different amounts of the same type of cargo can be transported different distances to generate the same number of ton-miles that incur different transportation costs. For example, 1,000 tons of cargo transported one mile generates 1,000 ton-miles of freight transportation services as does 10 tons of the same type of cargo being transported 100 miles. However, the transportation costs incurred by the transportation firm under the two scenarios are expected to be significantly different.
6. A freight transportation firm is technically efficient when it adheres to its economic production function in the provision of freight transportation service.
7. A freight transportation firm’s economic production function relates the maximum amount of freight transportation service that can be provided by the freight transportation firm as a function of the amount of cargo received by the firm for transport and the amounts of the resources utilized by the firm in the provision of freight transportation service.
8. A freight transportation firm is cost efficient when it adheres to its economic cost function in the provision of freight transportation service.
9. A freight transportation firm’s economic cost function relates the minimum cost to be incurred by a freight transportation firm in providing freight transportation service in transporting shipper cargo as a function of the amount of shipper cargo received by the freight transportation firm for transport, the prices paid for the resources used by the freight transportation firm in the provision of freight transportation service for the shipper cargo received for transport and the freight transportation service provided by the freight transportation firm for the shipper cargo received.
10. The demand for freight transportation service by shippers in the transportation of their cargoes from origin locations to destination locations is a function of two prices: 1) the transportation price (or rate) charged by the freight transportation firm to the shipper for the transportation service provided by the firm in transporting the shipper’s cargo from origin locations to destination locations and 2) the shipper’s logistics price that or the inventory costs incurred by the shipper’s cargo while being transported.
11. Operating Objectives of Transportation firms (to be discussed)
Bio:
Wayne K. Talley, Ph.D.
Executive Director, International Maritime,
Ports and Logistics Management Institute
Graduate Program Director, M.S. in Maritime Trade
and Supply Chain Management
Professor of Maritime and Supply Chain Management
Frederick W. Beazley Chair Professor of Economics
Eminent Scholar
Strome College of Business
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, Virginia U.S.A.
--109 referred articles in journals and edited-books
--13 scholarly books
-- International Onassis Prize in Shipping 2018, Co-Recipient
-- Senior Hanjin Shipping Prize, 1998
-- Distinguished Visitor, Institute of Transport Studies, Graduate School of Business, The University of Sydney, Australia, 1997
-- Visiting Fellow, Transport Studies Unit, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, 1983.
-- Honorary Visiting Professor, 2005 --
The Costas Grammenos International
Centre for Shipping, Trade and Finance,
Cass Business School
City University, London, U.K.
Annual Distinguished Research Award, U.S. Transportation Research Forum, 2013.
President 2014
Transportation and Public Utilities Group
American Economic Association/
Allied Social Science Associations
Conference Chair and Host
2014 International Association of Maritime Economists Conference
Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.A.
The "First" Editor-in-Chief of Transportation Research Part E: The Logistics and Transportation Review -- following the purchase by Elsevier of "The Logistics and Transportation Review" journal from the University of British Columbia.
Currently, Honorary Editor-in-Chief
Transportation Research Part E:
The Logistics and Transportation Review
Currently, Associate Editor, Journal of Business Logistics
Co-Editor-in-Chief (Co-Founder) 2020
Maritime Transport Research (Elsevier Journal)