GEOG 80 Transport Geography
Professor: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Topic 4 – Transport Terminals
A. The Function of Transport
Terminals
B. Ports and Rail Terminals
C. Airport Terminals
Hofstra University, Department of Global Studies & Geography
A – THE FUNCTION OF TRANSPORT
TERMINALS
1. Transport Terminals
2. Passengers Terminals
3. Freight Terminals
4. Terminal Costs
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
1. Transport Terminals
■ Concept
• Any location where freight and passengers either originates,
terminates, or is handled in the transportation process.
• All spatial flows involve movements between terminals:
• Except personal vehicular and pedestrian trips.
• Cannot travel individually, but in batches.
• People have to go to bus terminals and airports first to reach their final
destinations.
• Freight has to reach a port, a rail yard or a distribution center before
onward shipment.
• Terminals are essential links in transportation chains:
• Consolidation.
• Deconsolidation.
• Transshipment.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Major Features of Transport Terminals
Location
Serve a large concentration of population and/or industrial
activities.
Specific terminals have specific locational constraints.
New transport terminals: outside central areas to avoid high land
costs and congestion.
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 needs.
Modern terminal infrastructures require massive investments.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Centrality and Intermediacy
Centrality
Intermediacy
Range
Gateway
Hub (Interception)
Hub (Transcalar)
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
2. Passengers Terminals
■ Overview
• Passenger terminals require relatively little specific equipment.
• Simple structures.
• Basic amenities (waiting areas, ticket counters, food services).
■ Airports
• 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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Main Concourse, Madrid Airport, Spain
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
3. Freight Terminals
■ Specialized entities
• Specific loading and unloading equipment.
• Wide range of handling gear is required.
• Differentiated functionally:
• Mode (maritime, rail).
• Commodities (oil, grain, coal).
• Bulk, general cargo and container terminals.
■ Warehousing
• Assembling bundles of goods:
• Time-consuming and storage may be required.
• Specialized infrastructures:
• Grain silos, storage tanks, and refrigerated warehouses, or simply space
to stockpile.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Hong Kong International Distribution Center
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Main Types of Freight Terminals
Bulk
Large quantities, unpackaged and of uniform dimensions.
Liquid bulk (crude oil and refined products); handled using pumps;
significant storage facilities required.
Dry bulk (ores, coal and cereals); More equipment is required; specialized
grabs and cranes and conveyer-belt systems.
General cargo
Many shapes, dimensions and weights.
Machinery, processed materials and parts.
Because the goods are so uneven and irregular, handling is difficult to
mechanize.
Usually requires a lot of labor.
Containers
Minimal labor requirements; significant amount of storage space.
Simple paved areas where containers can be stacked and retrieved with a
set of cranes, straddlers and holsters.
Specialized cranes.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Modal Separation in Space: Europa Terminal in
Antwerp
Barges
Trucks
Rail
Deepsea services
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Terminal Costs
Cost
C1
C2
C3
T3
T2
T1
Infrastructure costs
Distance
Construction and maintenance costs.
Facilities (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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Factors behind the Interest of Equity Firms in
Transport Terminals
Asset (Intrinsic
value)
Globalization made terminal assets more valuable.
Terminals occupy premium locations (waterfront) that cannot be
substituted.
Traffic growth linked with valuation.
Same amount of land generates a higher income.
Terminals as fairly liquid assets.
Source of income
(Operational value)
Income (rent) linked with traffic volume.
Constant revenue stream with limited, or predictable, seasonality.
Traffic growth expectations result in income growth expectations.
Diversification
(Risk mitigation
value)
Sectorial and geographical asset diversification.
Terminals at different locations help mitigate risks linked with a specific
regional or national market.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
B – PORTS AND RAIL TERMINALS
1. Port Sites
2. Port Functions
3. Rail Terminals
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
1. Port Sites
Maritime
access
Physical capacity of the site.
Tidal range: Cannot handle variations of more than 3 meters.
Channel and berth depths: coping with growing ship size.
Panamax ship (65,000 deadweight tons) requires more than 12
meters (40 feet) of depth.
Maritime
interface
Amount of space that is available to support maritime access.
Related to the amount of shoreline.
Guarantee its future development and expansion.
Infrastructures
Piers, cranes and warehouses.
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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
The Evolution of a Port (Anyport Model)
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
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Evolution of the Port of Rotterdam
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
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.
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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
2. Port Functions
■ Port activities
•
•
•
•
•
•
About 4,600 ports in are in operation worldwide.
Less than 100 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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Container Ports of More than 1 Million TEU, 2007
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Monthly Container Traffic at the Port of Los
Angeles, 1995-2010
450,000
Out Loaded
400,000
In Loaded
In Empty
350,000
Out Empty
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
Jul-09
Jan-09
Jul-08
Jan-08
Jul-07
Jan-07
Jul-06
Jan-06
Jul-05
Jan-05
Jul-04
Jan-04
Jul-03
Jan-03
Jul-02
Jan-02
Jul-01
Jan-01
Jul-00
Jan-00
Jul-99
Jan-99
Jul-98
Jan-98
Jul-97
Jan-97
Jul-96
Jan-96
Jul-95
Jan-95
0
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Configuration of a Maritime Container Terminal
Rail
Road
Container crane
Administration
Gate
Repair / maintenance
Truck loading / unloading
Chassis storage
Loading / unloading area
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Port Elizabeth, New York
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Intermediate Hub Terminals
Hub-and-Spoke
Hub
85% of Transshipment Traffic
Interface between short distance
feeder lines and long distance deepsea lines, linking regional and global
shipping networks.
Relay
Interlining
15% of Transshipment Traffic
Interface between several
Point of interchange
pendulum routes along the
between several long
distance shipping lines. same maritime range, but
servicing a different array of
port calls.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
World’s Main Intermediate Hubs, 2007
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
2. Port Functions
Port Site
Space consumption
Lateral spread
Maritime Access
Land Space
Infrastructures
Maritime Space
Interface
Access channel
Dredging
Land Access
Port / city competition for land
Connection to inland transportation (road, rail
and barge)
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
The American Waterway System and Channel
Depth at Major Container Ports
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Centraal Train Station, Amsterdam
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
TGV Train at Gare de Lyon, Paris, France
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Antwerp Centraal Train Station, Belgium
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Quai d'Orsay Museum, Paris, France
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Configuration of a Rail Container Terminal
Repair / maintenance
Gate / Administration
Chassis storage
1 km
Rail Track Operations
Storage Yard Operations
Gate Operations
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Bedford Rail Yard, Chicago
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
C – AIRPORT TERMINALS
1. Airport Sites
2. Airport Functions
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Geographical Scales of Airport Location
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).
International / Regional
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.
Local
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Air Terminals: The Technical Support of Air
Transportation
Runways and parking areas.
About 3,300 meters (10,000 feet; 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.
Airfield
Shuttles
Isle
Terminal
1
2
Terminal
3
Freight and passenger transit infrastructures.
Infrastructures for plane accommodation.
Linked with local transport systems.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Newark Airport, terminal C
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
O’Hare Airport Modernization Program
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Airport Location Factors
High
Low
City Center
Commuting radius
Benefits
Low
High
High
Low
Externalities
Suitability
Location Ring
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Distance from CBD and Age of the World’s 30
Largest Airports
70
Distance from CBD (km)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Age in 2007
70
80
90
100
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Recently Completed Airports by Cost
Country
Airport
Year Opened
Cost (USD Billions)
China
Hong Kong (Chek Lap Kok)
1998
20.1
Japan
Osaka (Kansai International)
1994
14.4
Japan
Nagoya (Centrair)
2005
7.3
South Korea
Seoul (Incheon International)
2001
5.8
Germany
Munich (Franz Strauss)
1992
5.3
USA
Denver International
1995
4.2
Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur International
1998
3.2
Thailand
Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi)
2006
3.3
China
Guangzhou (Baiyun)
2004
2.5
China
Shanghai (Pudong)
1999
1.4
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Site of the Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Terminal
LRT
To Kowloon
and Hong Kong
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Aerial View of Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Airport Terminal
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Kansai International Airport, Osaka Bay, Japan
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Aerial View of the Dallas / Fort Worth Airport
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Phosavan Airfield, Laos
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
The Central Park Airport in Manhattan…
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
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.
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Passenger Traffic at the World’s Largest
Airports, 2008
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Freight Traffic at the World’s Largest Airports,
2008
© Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue