Andrew R. Goetz

The Geography of Deregulation in the U.S. Airline Industry

The U.S. domestic airline industry was deregulated in 1978 as part of a regulatory reform movement that has transformed the banking, telecommunications, energy, and transportation industries. A geography of deregulation has emerged conforming to a core-periphery structure in which industries are increasingly controlled by fewer firms through their major headquarters and operations centers. As a consequence of industry consolidation and the shift to“hub-and-spoke” network service structures, strong domestic“hubs” (e.g., Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta) and international gateway cities (e.g., Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco) have emerged as the core control centers of the air-transport system, while“spoke” cities have become peripheralized in the process. The group of core centers has benefited more than the periphery from increased air transportation employment, frequency of service, passenger flow, and lower fares, except in cases where hubs were dominated by one or two airlines, where fares rose. The latte...

Deregulation, competition, and antitrust implications in the US airline industry

Abstract Current problems in the US airline industry such as increasing industry consolidation, fortress hub dominance, predatory behavior, and high fare “pockets of pain” have their roots in the flaws of the theories that supported airline deregulation in 1978. Contrary to pre-deregulation expectations, the industry is characterized by large economies of scale, large barriers to entry, and a lack of contestability in airline markets. These inexorable economic forces are producing increased levels of monopoly and oligopoly control over city-pair markets resulting in a larger share of travelers paying higher fares. Additional mergers and acquisitions will exacerbate the problem. As these trends continue, the US Congress and the US Departments of Transportation and Justice will be under increasing pressure to take serious corrective actions.

AIR TRANSPORT GLOBALIZATION, LIBERALIZATION AND SUSTAINABILITY: POST- 2001 POLICY DYNAMICS IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE.

Abstract Against a context of international crisis in the air transport industry, this paper examines the implications of the ways in which strategies developed by key air transport stakeholders, as well as the contemporary dynamics of the globalized, liberalized market place, impact directly on sustainability issues. More specifically, the paper has two objectives. First, it discusses the policy ramifications of the interrelationships between the concepts of globalization, liberalization, and sustainability within the air transport industry. Second, the paper explores the import of these interrelationships as they interconnect with stakeholder strategies in the differing geopolitical contexts of the US and EU. Particular attention is given to airline network and frequency strategies. The paper concludes that while the financial sustainability of the airline industry is the overwhelming concern today, if this is essentially the short-term crisis that the airline industry claims it to be, the longer-term predictions of air transport growth will again bring environmental sustainability issues to the fore.

Getting realistic about megaproject planning: The case of the new Denver International Airport

Megaprojects continue to play a prominent role in promoting economic development, and have proliferated rapidly worldwide. But, as they have grown larger in number, size, and complexity, their planning, implementation and ultimate success become increasingly problematic. Most encounter unexpected difficulties and seldom achieve their original objectives. This article addresses the reasons for this state of affairs by focusing upon the relevance of the Rational model of decision making to the case of the new Denver International Airport. It traces its evolution and considers the extent to which the Rational model explains the major events. It concludes that this model has only limited explanatory power because it does not incorporate political elements which play a major role in megaprojects. The Rational model can be successfully applied to an entire project only where the political system permits a powerful agency to design and implement the project. This condition is rarely met in democratic societies, especially in the U.S. Furthermore, its applicability is limited by the new environment in which planning takes place, an environment that is marked by the emergence of new actors and increasing turbulence and uncertainty. Accordingly, recognition of the role of power suggests that the utility of the Rational model is limited and that alternative planning approaches that emphasize consensus building and flexibility need to be developed for megaproject planning.

Revisiting transportation planning and decision making theory: The case of Denver International Airport

Current approaches to transportation planning have yielded, at best, inconsistent results. Numerous projects, based on the traditional rational-comprehensive model, have failed to achieve their original objectives. Although scholars have, for decades, identified the weaknesses of this model and proposed new alternatives, it continues to dominate transportation planning. The case of Denver International Airport illustrates its weaknesses and the need to adopt more flexible alternative approaches that incorporate elements of robustness, corrigibility, hedging and resilience. For airport planning specifically, the new, highly volatile environment created by deregulation and increased public sensitivities needs to be recognized and new guidelines incorporating findings such as these should be designed and promulgated by the FAA.

Bridging the Qualitative–Quantitative Divide in Transport Geography∗

Recent viewpoints concerning the state of research in transport geography have touched on the issue of insularity and the need to bridge the divide between the largely spatial–analytical or quantitative research in transport geography and the critical or qualitative research prevalent in urban, economic, and most other subfields of human geography. Transport geography has been criticized by some for being a quiet corner of our discipline that has lost its centrality largely because it remains within the analytical framework of the 1960s. This article explores these sentiments by reexamining recent transport-oriented research in highly cited geography journals to assess the degree to which the qualitative–quantitative divide exists within transport geography and between transport and other subfield in human geography, as well as to explore issues of productivity and centrality of transport-oriented research in geography. Results indicate that geographical research involving transport topics is much more prevalent and reflects a wider range of epistemological and methodological approaches than is frequently assumed. Nevertheless, there is still a considerable divide between “mainstream” transport geography and other human geographical research that necessitates much more interaction between transport and other subfields and greater incorporation of alternative research approaches within the mainstream of transport geography. To that end, we propose a preliminary critical transport geography research agenda that is open to a variety of methodological approaches, including quantitative analysis.

Darkness on the edge of town : mapping urban and Peri-Urban Australia using nighttime satellite imagery

This article explores the use of nighttime satellite imagery for mapping urban and peri-urban areas of Australia. A population-weighted measure of urban sprawl is used to characterize relative levels of sprawl for Australias urban areas. In addition, the expansive areas of low light surrounding most major metropolitan areas are used to map the urban–bush interface of exurban land use. Our findings suggest that 82 percent of the Australian population lives in urban areas, 15 percent live in peri-urban or exurban areas, and 3 percent live in rural areas. This represents a significantly more concentrated human settlement pattern than presently exists in the United States.

Transport terminals: new perspectives

The first impression most geographers may have about the study of transport terminals is that their relevance outside of the transportation field would be very limited. To the contrary, transport terminals are at the very center of critical issues in economic, political, urban, and other geographic subfields, and deserve much more attention. One cannot fully appreciate how globalization works without understanding how seaports, airports, rail terminals, and truck terminals operate as the linchpins of the global economy. Transport terminals represent some of the most critical parts of the physical infrastructure that makes possible the increased volume of passenger and freight movements around the world. As such, funding for new and expanded infrastructure is a central concern for local, regional, national, and supranational authorities. Since much of this infrastructure must be in or near major urban areas, issues involving the positive and negative externalities of port and terminal location can come to dominate public discourse at the local level.

City-regionalism as a Politics of Collective Provision: Regional Transport Infrastructure in Denver, USA

The rise of the city-region concept has focused attention on the nature of territorial politics underpinning city-regionalism. This paper investigates the relationship between territorial politics, city-regionalism and the collective provision of mass transport infrastructure in the USA. It deploys a case study of the Denver region, examining the state and governance structures driving forward FasTracks, a long-term project to expand the Denver Regional Transportation District’s light and commuter rail system. FasTracks represents a programme to retrofit the Denver city-region for integrated mass transit but its funding has fostered tensions around new regionalist governance arrangements. The paper uses the findings of the case study to reflect upon the balance of bottom–up versus top–down geopolitical forces shaping the landscape of city-regionalism in the USA. It emphasises the variety of ways in which struggles around infrastructure provision shape the emergence of new city-regionalist structures inside the competition state.

ASSESSING INTERMODAL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING AT STATE DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION

We assessed the practice of freight and passenger intermodal planning at seven state departments of transportation Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas through analyses of previous studies, long- and short-range plans, organisational structures, surveys, and interviews. Results indicate that these states have altered their organisational structures and have produced plans that increasingly reflect an intermodal orientation, but that Florida and Louisiana were rated somewhat higher. Specific intermodal projects, public participation, and coordination among agencies tended to be rated more highly, while funding for and state DOT attitudes toward transit, bicycle/pedestrian, and intermodal connectors were rated much lower.