GEOG 80 – Transport Geography
Professor: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Topic 4 – Transportation Terminals
A.
B.
C.
D.
The Function of Transport Terminals
Ports and Rail Terminals
Airport Terminals
Terminals and Security
A – The Function of Transport Terminals
■
■
■
■
1. The Nature of Transport Terminals
2. Passengers Terminals
3. Freight Terminals
4. Terminal Costs
1. The Nature of Transport Terminals
■ Concept
• All spatial flows, with the exception of personal vehicular and
pedestrian trips, involve movements between terminals.
• Modes assembly and distribution:
• Cannot travel individually, but in batches.
• People have to go to bus terminals and airports first to reach their final
destinations.
• Freight has to be consolidated at a port or a rail yard before onward
shipment.
• Terminals are essential links in transportation chains.
1. The Nature of Transport Terminals
■ Definition
• Any location where freight and passengers either originates,
terminates, or is handled in the transportation process.
• Central and intermediate locations:
• Points of interchange within the same modal system.
• Insure a continuity of the flows.
• Particularly the case for modern air and port operations.
• Require specific facilities to accommodate the traffic they handle.
• Points of interchange: within the same mode.
• Points of transfer: between modes.
1. The Nature of Transport Terminals
■ Location
• Serve a large concentration of population and/or industrial
activities.
• Specific terminals have specific locational constraints.
• New transport terminals tend to be located outside central areas
to avoid high land costs and congestion.
■ Convergence
• Obligatory points of passage.
• Invested on their geographical location which is generally
intermediate to commercial flows.
• Created by the centrality or the intermediacy of their respective
locations.
1. The Nature of Transport Terminals
■ Accessibility
• Accessibility to other terminals (at the local, regional and global
scale).
• How well the terminal is linked to the regional transport system.
■ Infrastructure
• Handle and transship freight or passengers.
• Must accommodate current traffic and anticipate future trends.
• Modern terminal infrastructures consequently require massive
investments.
The Function of Transport Terminals
Location
Local
Regional
Global
Infrastructures
Accessibility
2. Passengers Terminals
■ Overview
• Passenger terminals require relatively little specific equipment.
• Simple structures.
• Basic amenities (waiting areas, ticket counters, food services).
■ Airports
Are the exception.
The most complex terminals.
Passengers may spend several hours in the terminal.
Transiting, check-in and security checks, baggage pick up and
customs and immigration on international arrivals.
• Wide range of services.
• Provide the very specific needs of the aircraft.
•
•
•
•
Chek Lap Kok Air Terminal, Main Concourse, Hong Kong, China
3. Freight Terminals
■ Specialized entities
• Specific loading and unloading equipment.
• Wide range of handling gear is required.
• Differentiated functionally both by the mode involved and the
commodities transferred.
■ Distinction by two major types of cargo
• Bulk:
• Goods that are handled in large quantities, that are unpackaged and are
available in uniform dimensions.
• Liquid bulk goods: Pumps to move the product along hoses and pipes;
limited handling equipment is needed, but significant storage facilities may
be required.
• Dry bulk: wide range of products, such as ores, coal and cereals;
handling equipment is required; utilize specialized grabs and cranes and
conveyer-belt systems.
3. Freight Terminals
• General cargo:
• Goods that are of many shapes, dimensions and weights such as
machinery and parts.
• Because the goods are so uneven and irregular, handling is difficult to
mechanize.
• General cargo handling usually requires a lot of manpower.
■ Warehousing
• Assembling the individual bundles of goods:
• Time-consuming and storage may be required.
• Need for terminals to be equipped with specialized
infrastructures:
• Grain silos, storage tanks, and refrigerated warehouses, or simply space
to stockpile.
Hong Kong International Distribution Center
4. Terminal Costs
■ Terminal costs
• An important component of transport costs.
• Infrastructure costs:
• Construction and maintenance costs.
• Facilities such as piers, runways, cranes and structures.
• Transshipment costs:
• Composing, handling and decomposing passengers or freight.
• Labor requirement of terminal facilities.
• Administration costs:
• Managed by institutions such as port or airport authorities or by private
companies.
Terminal Costs
Cost
C1
C2
C3
T3
T2
T1
Distance
B – Ports and Rail Terminals
■ 1. Port Sites
■ 2. Port Functions
■ 3. Rail Terminals
1. Port Sites
■ Ports
• Convergence between two domains of freight circulation:
• Land and maritime domains.
• Facilitates convergence between land transport and maritime systems.
• Handle the largest amounts of freight, more than any other types
of terminals combined.
• Infrastructures to accommodate transshipment activities.
• Administration:
• Submitted to authorities.
• Regulating infrastructure investments, its organization and development
and its relationships with customers using its services.
Port Sites
In a delta
Margin of a delta
Along a river
Natural harbors
In an estuary
Near an estuary
In a bay
Protected
1. Port Sites
■ Port sites
• Maritime access:
• Physical capacity of the site to accommodate ship operations.
• Tidal range: difference between the high and low tide. Ship operations
cannot handle variations of more than 3 meters.
• Channel and berth depths: very important to accommodate modern cargo
ships.
• Panamax ship (65,000 deadweight tons) requires more than 12 meters
(40 feet) of depth.
• Many port sites are unable to handle modern maritime access.
• Maritime interface:
• Amount of space that is available to support maritime access.
• Related to the amount of shoreline.
• Guarantee its future development and expansion.
1. Port Sites
• Infrastructures:
• Must have infrastructures such as piers, cranes and warehouses.
• Infrastructures consume land which must be available to insure port
expansion.
• Land access:
• Access from the port to industrial complexes and markets.
• Requires efficient inland distribution systems, such as fluvial, rail (mainly
for containers) and road transportation.
Post Panamax Containership at the Port of Le Havre
Basic Constraints of Port Sites
Land Access
Land Space
Port
Infrastructures
Maritime Space
Maritime Access
Interface
Harbor Types
Coastal Natural
Coastal Breakwater
River Basins
River Tide Gates
Coastal Tide Gates
River Natural
Canal or Lake
Open Roadstead
Number of Large and Medium Ports by Channel Depth
8
6 to 10
11
11 to 15
16
16 to 20
36
Channel Depth (Feet)
21 to 25
26 to 30
76
31 to 35
76
71
36 to 40
47
41 to 45
16
45 to 50
6
51 to 55
10
56 to 60
61 to 65
4
66 to 70
4
5
71 to 75
33
76 and over
0
10
20
30
40
Number of Ports
50
60
70
80
The American Waterway System
Control Depth
Less than 6 feet
6 to 20 feet
20 to 45 feet
45 to 75 feet
More than 75 feet
Channel Depth at Selected North American Ports, 1998
(in feet)
Jacksonville
38
Charleston
40
New York
40
Savannah
42
Oakland
42
Los Angeles
1998
Phase I (2003)
Phase II (2009)
46
Baltimore
50
Hampton Roads
50
Halifax
60
Long Beach
76
Seattle
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
175
1. Port Sites
■ Port development
• Setting:
•
•
•
•
•
Dependent on geographical considerations.
Furthest point of inland navigation by sailships.
Fishing port with trading and shipbuilding activities.
Simple terminal facilities.
Warehousing and wholesaling, adjacent to the port.
• Expansion:
• The industrial revolution triggered several changes on port activities.
• Quays were expanded and jetties were constructed to handle the growing
amounts of freight and passengers as well as larger ships).
• Shipbuilding became an activity that required the construction of docks.
• Integration of rail lines with port terminals.
• Port-related activities expanded to include industrial activities.
• Expansion mainly occurred downstream.
1. Port Sites
• Specialization:
• Construction of specialized piers to handle freight such as containers,
ores, grain, petroleum and coal.
• Expansion of warehousing needs.
• Larger high-capacity ships often required dredging or the construction of
long jetties granting access to greater depths.
• Downstream migration.
• Original port sites became obsolete and were abandoned.
• Reconversion opportunities of port facilities to other uses (waterfront
parks, housing and commercial developments).
The Evolution of a Port
Expansion
Setting
2
1
2
Downtown
Urban expansion
3
Specialization
Terminal facilities
Port-related activities
4
5
3
4
Water depth
4
4
4
Rail
Highway
Reconversion
Evolution of the Port of Rotterdam
Leiden
Development
Phases
Wassenaar
Voorschoten
United Kingdom
1400 - 1800
1800 - 1900
Netherlands
1920 - 1940
Germany
1946 - 1960
Belgium
Den Haag
Luxembourg
1970
ne
1970 - 2000
hi
France
1960 Zoetermeer
R
Pijnacker
's-Gravenzande
Delft
Naaldwijk
Capelle aan den IJssel
Maassluis
Vlaardingen
Krimpen aan den IJssel
Schiedam
Rotterdam
Hoogvliet
Barendrecht
Spijkenisse
Hellevoetsluis
Oud-Beijerland
0
1.5
3
6
9
12
Miles
2. Port Functions
■ Main functions
•
•
•
•
•
Supply services to freight (warehousing, transshipment, etc.).
Supply services to ships (piers, refueling, repairs, etc.).
Concomitantly a maritime and land terminal.
Regional in their dynamics.
Hong Kong:
• Natural site.
• Geographical position of a transit harbor for southern China.
• Singapore:
• Outlet of the strategic Strait of Malacca.
• Convergence of Southeast Asian transportation.
• New York:
• Gateway of the North American Midwest.
• Hudson / Erie canal system.
Port Functions
Maritime Space
Regional
port
Foreland
Regional
port
Hinterland
Main port
Import activity
Rail transport
Road transport
FDC
Maritime
transport
Freight distribution center
Main port
Services to
merchandises
Export activity
FDC
Infrastructure
Services to
ships
FDC
Land Space
2. Port Functions
■ Port activities
•
•
•
•
•
•
About 4,600 ports in are in operation worldwide.
Less than one hundred ports have a global importance.
High level of concentration in a limited number of large ports.
Linked to maritime access and infrastructure development.
Gateways of continental distribution systems.
Containerization has substantially changed port dynamics.
■ Port types
• Monofunctionnal ports:
• Transit a limited array of commodities, most often dry or liquid bulks.
• Specialized piers.
• Polyfunctionnal ports:
• Several transshipment and industrial activities are present.
• Variety of specialized and general cargo piers.
Throughput of the World’s Major Ports, 1997-2000 (in
millions of metric tons)
Hamburg
1997
2000
Marseilles
Yokohama
Pusan
Antwerp
Nagoya
Hong Kong
Shanghai
Singapore
Rotterdam
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Container Traffic of the World 15 Largest Ports, 2003
New York/New Jersey
Quingdao
Long Beach
Port Kalang
Dubai
Antwerp
Hamburg
Rotterdam
Los Angeles
Kaohsiung
Busan
Shenzhen
Shanghai
Singapore
Hong Kong
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
Traffic at Major North American Container Ports, 2003
St. John's
Fraser
Vancouver (BC)
Tacoma Everett
Seattle
Portland(OR)
Montreal
Halifax
Saint John
Portland(ME)
Boston
Albany
New York/New Jersey
Toronto
Wilmington(DE)
Baltimore
Philadelphia
Oakland
San Francisco
Richmond(VA)
Hampton Roads
TEU (2003)
Less than 100,000
100,000 to 300,000
Los Angeles
Hueneme
Long Beach
San Diego
Ensenada
Wilmington(NC)
Charleston
Savannah
Mobile
Gulfport
Freeport Galveston
1 million to 2 million
FernandinaJacksonville (FY)
Houston
More than 2 million
Canaveral
Tampa
Palm Beach (FY)
Manatee
Miami (FY)
Port Everglades (FY)
San Juan (FY)
Mazatlan
Tampico
Altamira
Manzanillo
300,000 to 1 million
Veracruz
Lazaro Cardenas
Salina Cruz
Ponce
Progreso
Puerto Morelos
2. Port Functions
■ Problems related to port infrastructures
• Ports along rivers are continuously facing dredging problems.
• Width of rivers is strongly limiting capacity:
• Rarely a port along a river has the capacity to handle Post Panamax
ships.
• Lateral spread of infrastructures (Seaports).
• Congestion in central areas.
• Port / city competition for land (waterfront development).
3. Rail Terminals
■ Location
• Not as space-extensive as airports and ports.
• Suffer less from site constraints:
• Many established prior to the Second World War.
• Cities were more compact and land acquisition was easier.
• Passengers and freight terminals:
• Different locations.
• Central railway stations:
• Feature of most cities and tend to be located in downtown areas.
• Key elements of urban centrality and activity.
• Freight rail stations:
• Consume more space.
• Tend to be located at the periphery.
• Older yards tend to be located at the margin of CBDs.
Centraal Train Station, Amsterdam
TGV Train at Gare de Lyon, Paris, France
Quai d'Orsay Museum, Paris, France
C – Airport Terminals
■ 1. Airport Sites
■ 2. Airport Functions
1. Airport Sites
■ Concept
• Airports act as the main technical support of air transport.
• Increased pressures on terminals:
• Existing terminals have been expanded and new terminals have been
constructed.
• Replace airports no longer able to cope with the increased traffic.
• International / Regional:
• Role and function in the international and regional urban system.
• Centrality (being an origin and destination of air traffic) and intermediacy
(a hub or a gateway between destinations).
• Local:
• Level of accessibility of the airport over the metropolitan area it services.
• Daily flows of planes, passengers, freight to and from the airport's
terminals.
Geographical Scales of Airport Location
International / Regional
Local
1. Airport Sites
■ Local site requirements.
• Airfields:
• Runways and parking areas.
• Long enough to accommodate the takeoff and landing of commercial
planes.
• About 3,300 meters (10,000 feet) are required for a 747 to takeoff.
• Slope (less 1%), altitude and meteorological conditions.
• About 32 movements (landings and takeoffs) per hour are possible on a
commercial runway under optimal conditions.
• Terminals:
• Freight and passenger transit infrastructures.
• Infrastructures for plane accommodation.
• Linked with local transport systems.
Air Terminals
Airfield
Shuttles
Isle
Terminal
1
2
Terminal
3
Airport Location Factors
High
Low
City Center
Commuting radius
Benefits
Low
High
High
Low
Externalities
Suitability
Location Ring
1. Airport Sites
■ Land requirements
• Land required by modern airport operations is considerable:
• Landing and take off of planes.
• Buffer between the adjacent urban areas to limit the noise generated.
• Parking areas in airports located in car dependent cities.
• Peripheral sites:
• Sufficient quantities of land available.
• The more recently an airport was constructed, the more likely this airport
is to be located far from the city center.
• Expansion and relocation:
•
•
•
•
Extremely difficult.
Most airports have grown at locations chosen in the 1950s and 1960s.
Most airports are now surrounded.
Only sites available are far from the urban core.
Site of the Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Terminal
Light Rail System
To Kowloon
and Hong Kong
Aerial View of Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Airport Terminal
Kansai International Airport, Osaka Bay, Japan
Aerial View of the Dallas / Fort Worth Airport
Phosavan Airfeild, Laos
2. Airport Functions
■ Airport activities
• Terminal activities:
• Parking, ground transportation, checking in, baggage-claiming,
restoration, retailing and maintenance.
• Provide services to passengers and freight.
• Airfield activities:
• Loading and unloading planes, maintenance and traffic control.
• Provide services to aircrafts.
■ Economic functions
• Improved economic opportunities.
• Employment (USA):
• $500 billion of economic activity.
• 1.9 million direct and 4.8 million indirect jobs.
• Global service activities.
• Passengers and freight airports.
Passenger Traffic at the World’s Largest Airports, 2004
London Heathrow
Frankfurt Intl
Chicago O'Hare
Paris De Gaulle
Los Angeles Intl
Dallas Intl
Passengers
Less than 30 M
30 M to 40 M
40 M to 60 M
More than 60 M
Atlanta Hartsfield
Tokyo Haneda
Freight Traffic at the World’s Largest Airports, 2004
Frankfurt Intl
New York Ny/Newark Kennedy
Memphis Intl
Los Angeles Intl
Louisville Standiford
Freight
Less than 1 M
1 to 1.5 M
1.5 to 2 M
More than 2 M
Miami Int'L
Paris De Gaulle
Incheon Hlpt Tokyo Narita
Hong Kong IntlTaipei Shek
Singapore Changi
Tons of Landed Freight at Major US Airports, 2003
SEA
BFI
GEG
PDX
MSP
BOI
SYR
BUF
FSD
RFD
OMA
SFO OAK
SJC
JFK
EWR
PHL
MDT
ORDMKE
SLC
RNO
DSM
DEN
MCI
DTW
TOL CLE
PIT
FWA
IND
DAY
CVG
SDF
IAD
BWI
RIC
STL
LAS
RDU
LAX
ONT
TUL
MEM
BNA
CLT
ABQ
SAN
HSV
PHX
ATL
CAE
DFW
SHV
ELP
JAX
AUS
SAT
Tons of Landed Freight (2003)
Less than 400,000
2 million to 4 million
400,000 to 800,000
800,000 to 2 million
IAH
MSY
MCO
TPA
MIA
FLL
More than 4 million
BOSMHT
BDL
D – Terminal Security
■ 1. Passengers
■ 2. Freight
1. Passengers
■ A focus on terminals
• Access is monitored and controlled.
• Movements are channeled along pathways that provide safe
access to and from platforms and gates.
• Safety and theft have been a concern for freight terminals.
■ Airports
• Focus of security concerns for many decades.
• High-jacking aircraft came to the fore in the 1970s.
• Terrorist groups in the Middle East exploited the lack of security
to commandeer planes for ransom and publicity.
• Established screening procedures for passengers and bags.
• Reductions in hijackings, although terrorists changed their tactics
by placing bombs in un-accompanied luggage and packages,
1. Passengers
■ Hub-and-spoke networks
• Strain on the security process.
• Disparities in the effectiveness of passenger screening.
■ Impacts of September 11, 2001
• Department of Homeland Security established the Transportation
Security Authority (TSA).
• Strict new security measures:
• Restricting access to airport facilities.
• Fortifying cockpits.
• Extensive security screening of passengers.
• Screening:
• More rigorous inspections of passengers and their baggage at airports.
• Biometric identification for foreign nationals (fingerprint, facial recognition).
1. Passengers
■ Costs
•
•
•
•
•
All screeners (45,000) are now part of the Federal workforce.
Purchase of screening machinery and training of personnel.
Additional delays and aggravation for passengers.
Downturn in air transport.
Some passengers may switch to other modes.
2. Freight
■ Issues
• Less regulated and greater international dimensions.
• Illegal immigrants, drug smuggling, piracy.
• The container makes it extremely difficult to identify illicit and/or
dangerous cargoes.
• Hubbing:
• Compounds the problem.
• Large numbers of containers are required to be handled with minimum
delays and inconvenience.
• Automated Identity System:
• Permanently marked and visible identity number.
• Record maintained of flag, port of registry and address of the registered
owner.
2. Freight
• Each port must undertake a security assessment
• Assets and facilities.
• Effects of damages that might be caused.
• Evaluate the risks, and identify weaknesses to security.
• Customs clearance:
• All cargoes destined for the US.
• Prior to the departure of the ship.
• Biometric identification for seafarers to be implemented and that national
databases of sailors to be maintained.