- Email: [email protected]
Transport and Globalization
Transport and Globalization K. O’Connor, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Glossary Containerization The use of a box with internationally agreed dimensions for the shipment of goods. Gateway City The first place of contact of a transport network in a nation or region. Global Cities Concentrations of the production of high-level services and the focus of international commercial links between nations. Hubs Concentrations of passenger and/or freight traffic. Intermodal Movement of freight between transport modes. Logistics The comprehensive organization of the movement of freight. Production Systems The ways that firms arrange the collection of raw materials and/or components and the delivery of final goods. Supply Chains Links within and between firms for the movement of goods. Transport Systems The organization of transport by routes and modes.
Globalization involves the dispersal of production across the globe. Transport systems of various kinds have enabled that dispersal to take place. This can be seen in historic examples as production took tentative steps from a small known world to a global network. It is apparent today in the tightly organized production systems that involve collection and distribution to and from sites spread within and between continents on regular timetabled services. These services tend to favor hub cities, which now stand out as the key players within most transport systems. These changes have reorganized spaces within cities, as airports have emerged as new centers of activity, seaports and airports have been relocated, and new transport infrastructure built to cope with the movement of freight and passengers. Change continues with some smaller cities, and the fringes of cities, feeling the impact of new transport technologies and methods.
Introduction Transport is perhaps the sine qua non of globalization. In a very broad sweep of history, the stages in the spread of production across the globe are closely linked to eras in transport systems. These eras appeared following the
424
efforts of explorers and then matured as technicians refined the ships, trains, trucks, and eventually planes to carry people and freight. Through their evolution and maturation, these methods of transport extended the mobility, speed, and reach of goods and services of firms, merchants, and also of people. Taking advantage of these gains enabled firms to expand by accessing new and often cheaper sources of raw materials, as well as by supplying larger markets. Realizing those opportunities needed new management skills in trade and transport operation. Those with the requisite skills in effect managed the global economy, and reshaped the size, location, and internal organization of cities where they worked. The pressure of those forces is still being felt with some new cities playing a role in global transport, new skills being applied in old cities, and new patterns emerging within them to accommodate new needs.
A Historical Perspective on Globalization and Transport The global economy emerged in stages. For a time it was expressed in small amounts of trade around the Mediterranean Sea, and into the agricultural communities of the Middle East and beyond. A series of cities emerged along the transport routes across what was a small part of that small current world. Better organization allied to higher standards in shipping and land transport spread the reach of this trade and eventually very long supply chains connected Western Europe to much of Asia. Many of these supply chains were organized via Venice. Merchants there, familiar with a range of sea and land transport systems, were able to connect sources of materials and supply markets that were long distances away to their east and also to their west. Venice became in its time what we now call a ‘global city’. Later, sea transport improvements would redefine the scale and scope of the global economy in terms of ocean frontages rather than inland caravan routes; the capacity to manage and direct this new set of supply chains fell to Atlantic coast rather than Mediterranean cities. Amsterdam was especially prominent in this era. The importance of ocean frontages was then enhanced by land transport improvements. First canals, then rail, and eventually road linkages enabled the goods from the sea to be carried to and from the resources and markets inland. What followed was not only industrial expansion on a massive scale, most obviously in northwestern Europe, but also the accelerated expansion into new territories associated with colonialization. In the colonies,
Transport and Globalization
ocean-based points of contact provided the foundation for subsequent urban settlement of continents, and eventually nations. The colonial cities dotted along the US, Canadian, Australian, African, Latin American, and Asian coastlines provided the local infrastructure for supply chains using global sea transport and regional (and local) land transport to connect farmers, and miners in many places across the globe to factories and consumers in Europe. Return voyages bought consumer goods and the equipment needed for colonial management and development. Shipping was the core element of these supply chains and provided the exotic as well as the low-cost supplies to Europe, while also providing access to large new markets. Steady technical improvements in shipping meant that transport that was once scarce, difficult, and unpredictable became more reliable. The nation (Britain), and the city (London) that managed much of the new arrangements in shipping gained most from this era. In the colonies, a gradual sorting out of the importance of places took place as shipping service began to select some ports over others. Places that acted as gathering points or key stops along the way had special prominence. Singapore owes its emergence as major port to that effect. The management of the colonial networks eventually required better contact and electronic communication systems were developed. These snaked tentatively across the globe, following some of the sea routes and focusing on the large colonial seaports. The skeletal structure they created has been replicated in the complex webs of optic fibers that now span the globe. In a more recent period, and in another part of the globe, the location and growth in economic activity was also closely linked to the utilization of sea transport. A new focus of economic activity in Asia emerged once transport innovations allowed large-scale shipping of coal, iron ore, and oil. Those innovations were eventually reflected in the global domination of the steel mills of Japan and later Korea. That steel was later built into global exports of cars, ships, and industrial machinery. Around the same time the mobility of all sorts of industrial goods, and the role of shipping, was increased substantially once a simple standard container was adopted by the world’s shipping lines. This piece of equipment meant that goods could be packed in one part of the world and moved easily to any other part of the world, lifted from ship to train to truck before arriving intact at a customer’s factory or warehouse. The scope and significance of this simple physical move was expanded substantially when digital information was added to the box, and the data transmitted by global telecommunications systems. The optically scanned code on the side of the box, connected to the shipping manifest, showing delivery arrangements at the destination enabled finely articulated logistics systems to be developed and run on predetermined schedules. Today, much of the
425
stock for sale in the retail stores in the US or Western Europe was packed into a container on an industrial estate somewhere in China several weeks earlier. The order for the container load might have come from a US warehouse computer connected both to the factory in China, and to a transport company (with sea, rail, and road connections) that would arrange the pickup and delivery of the container. This new reliability and flexibility in intermodal transport has enabled major redirections in the organization of production. Globalization is now expressed in production systems that fragment production into separate processes located across the world. It is now common for the finance and management, design, component production, and assembly of a good or service to be located in many different places. Final deliveries are made to a wide array of destinations. These global production systems only work when predictable global sea and air logistical services are available. This logistical capacity can have a direct role in production systems where delivery times, and their flexibility, are built into production planning. In fact, in some firms corporate structure and organization has been reshaped to coordinate production in time as well as in space. This ease of transport has changed the pattern of trade. Rather than one nation’s goods or resources moving to another nation where they are not available, today’s trade is made up of complex and multidirectional movement of the same goods and services between individual firms. For example, car parts and cars cross the Atlantic and the Pacific in containers in both directions as producers based in the US, Japan, and Europe draw upon supplies from, and arrange assembly in, places as diverse as Brazil, Mexico, and Thailand. Similarly, trade in services is greatest between North America and Europe, the two leading sites of service production. That exchange accounts for the very substantial amount of business travel on aircraft between those two continents. This new level of mobility of goods and services has been grafted on to an international trading economy that emerged over the previous 400–500 years. That graft has not been a simple match however, as the focus of traffic has changed and new ports, new air transport hubs, new rail, and road links have emerged. Once again, those capable in the management and organization of the new transport tasks have become prominent. Today that includes firms associated with the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai, as well as a shipping company from Copenhagen (Maersk) and an air freight company centered at Memphis (Federal Express). At the same time some of the old cities have retained their role in the management of the new network. For example, the Baltic Exchange (established in the eighteenth century) still provides a global market place for sea and air freight from its location in the City of London. Hamburg, too, remains as an influential operator in transport and logistics.
426
Transport and Globalization
Geographic Impacts of Global Transport The examples cited above show how the evolution in transport technology has been associated with the steady and evolving globalization of the world economy. That evolution has had some distinctive impacts. Many of these emerge from the geographically selective character of transport services. That can be seen initially in the linear connection between an origin and a destination that is provided by a mode of transport. This linearity creates a geographic selectivity first in which points are connected, and second in the benefits it offers places along the way. Hence, the caravan routes across Central Asia, the shipping routes across the Mediterranean, the shipping routes along the coasts of Africa and India, the rail net across the US, and airline routes from Asia to Europe all have a linearity, and all have created narrow corridors of impact across vast continents. Some places along these routes emerged as markets, production sites, or centers of administration. Those outcomes narrowed the local and regional impact of globalization and privileged some places over others. That privilege is felt especially in ‘gateway cities’. Gateway cities are places where global transport systems make local contact. Their role is best seen in the port cities on colonial coastlines, but their effect would have been felt in the caravan staging points of Central Asia, can be seen at rail junctions and termini, and now in the role played by major airports in cities. The transport privilege of a gateway city emerges because it offers first access to global goods and services and may have frequent services. It can be a place of management of the transport system, requiring effort in the organization of physical goods and information, dispersing inward supplies and assembling outgoing goods; that means it is a place of local trading, as inbound and outbound goods and services are sold by local merchants. Finally it has a set of functions (offices, storage facilities, technical servicing, and so on) not needed in other cities, which enriches its commercial activity. The gateway city effect was important in the development of New York, Montreal, San Francisco, Melbourne, Sydney, and Mumbai. Today, Hong Kong and Shanghai draw much of their vitality from their role as gateway cities in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangste Delta, respectively. These experiences illustrate how the operation of the transport system itself creates a locally uneven impact of globalization.
The Changing Geographic Impact of Transport That uneven impact has been refined and changed as each transport system has evolved and in some cases replaced. This evolution has usually been expressed in
both size and speed of vehicles. As ships, planes, and trains became larger and technically advanced in terms of speed and fuel consumption, the initial short stages between linear or coastal patterns of transport were gradually extended. Some earlier stopping points were bypassed and some original gateway cities were no longer needed as new technologies were adopted. Later, new standard roads would bypass some smaller towns, while high-speed rail services operated with fewer stops. This outcome is well illustrated in the concentration of sea traffic at a series of major nodes. Steady increases in the capacity and speed of container ships have changed the networks of shipping. Today, loads are gathered from regional supply as well as local sources for transshipment from small to large vessels in ports such as Hong Kong and Singapore before being moved across oceans (bypassing smaller ports enroute) to markets. In air transport, increased speed and size were provided by the introduction of jet engine, and the creation of the Boeing 747 aircraft. Both represented sudden major changes from existing technology. The first lifted the speed and range of aircraft considerably as the jet engine had much greater speed and lower fuel needs of the old piston engines. The Boeing 747 was a very major step-up in size and range, enabling many more passengers (and freight) to be flown between airports. The first effect of these changes was felt in a substantial reduction in the number of stopping points along international routes. As an example, in the petrol engine era there were up to five or six stops between Singapore or Hong Kong and London; the Boeing 707 reduced these to three or four; later the Boeing 747 would eliminate stops on this route altogether. Across the Atlantic, steady improvement in aircraft speed and capacity obviated the need for technical stops at Shannon (Ireland) and Gander (Canada). In the northern Pacific, jet aircraft were able to use great circle routes between the US and North (and later Southeast) Asia. Initially these routes involved Anchorage as a technical stop over, but soon the routes were flown nonstop. The technical capacity to fly great circle routes across the polar regions (facilitated by the adoption of global positioning systems) had another important consequence: northern and eastern US cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, and New York became as close to Asia as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Up until this time the latter cities had been the main gateways to Asia, fed by traffic across the central Pacific via Hawaii and Guam. Flying times to Europe were also reduced, and daily nonstop flights between Tokyo and London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt became common. Simultaneously, places like Honolulu, Anchorage, Mumbai, and Bahrain had less daily through traffic. The geographic effect of these technical developments in the jet aircraft network (especially the increase in the size of aircraft) was not limited simply to the
Transport and Globalization
bypassing of places along a route. As was occurring in the concentration of sea freight in containers, there was a gathering of larger numbers of passengers at a smaller number of places, labeled ‘hubs’. The large numbers of passengers were needed in part to justify the use of larger aircraft; this approach had a significant impact on the relative size of airports in Southeast Asia, with competition between Bangkok, Singapore, and Hong Kong for the regional hub role. In the US, the hub concept was used by airlines to reorganize their domestic services. Hub airports were fed by short links from surrounding cities, many of which had once been stops along the old trunk routes. As a result, hubs had more frequent and more diverse airline connections, so they began to assert some of the effects of the early gateway cities, providing good opportunities for business (and in many cases cheaper fares). Some were creations of the old transport system (such as London and New York), others reflected new patterns and capacity (Los Angeles and Singapore), others the home base of airlines (Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth, and Atlanta). In this way, the air transport system has redirected the urban effects of globalization. In fact, the hierarchy of global cities is now mirrored in the hierarchy of busy airports. Today’s large airport cities can be seen as a spatial expression of the working of the global economy. It is possible that outcome may be changing a little as airline services are increasing at mid-sized cities. That reflects the development of smaller long-haul aircraft that can provide point-to-point services to pairs of nonhub cities. Debate about whether the future will involve more very large aircraft flying from hub to hub, or more services between mid-sized cities on smaller aircraft, is ongoing. Similar change can be seen in the technical development in sea transport. Steady expansion in the size and speed of shipping reduced the need for stops on long routes, so removing the servicing and management roles from many places, and also their regular delivery of goods. The adoption of containers accelerated this selectivity; that change led to a steady rise in ship size, so that the hub system created for large and long-distance aircraft has been replicated by large and long-distance shipping services. Hub ports were fed by delivery from other cities; in some cases rail and road freight services facilitated the gathering and dispersal of containers to and from a hub, replacing earlier coastal services. The scale of container ships is continuing to rise, so that the hub-to-hub service seems likely to remain significant in the future. The data displayed in Table 1 provide an indication of just how powerful the hub system has become in global transport. Almost one-half of all the containers moved through the 100 busiest port cities are handled by those cities ranked in the top ten; the top 20 ports handle
427
Table 1 Shares of transport activity at top 100 airports and seaports 2002 Cities ranked in
Share of traffic Top 10 11 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 to 60 61 to 70 71 to 80 81 to 90 91 to 100
Sea ports
Air ports
Container movements TEUs
Passenger number
Air freight tons loaded
48.0 14.6 9.0 7.0 6.4 4.8 3.5 2.5 2.2 2.0 100.0
30.5 15.0 13.3 9.5 7.7 6.6 5.6 4.6 4.0 3.2 100.0
38.7 22.3 12.4 7.3 5.6 4.1 3.3 2.4 2.3 1.6 100.0
Source: Containerisation International 2002. Airports Council International 2002. Note: Data for cities with more than one port or airport have been merged.
almost two-thirds of the total. Air freight is similarly concentrated: the share of freight moving through the top ten airports as not quite as significant, but the top 20 account for 60% of the tonnage handled. Air passenger movements are less concentrated: one has to include the top 30 cities to account for 60% of all passenger movements. These outcomes illustrate that mix of size, speed, and reach of ships and planes has consolidated and strengthened hub operations. Although hubs are prominent, there is a well-developed technical capacity to manage the transshipment of goods from large to small ships, from ships to rail or road, from large planes to small planes, and from planes to trucks. That technical capacity (based on information technology) ensures that the transport system is well equipped to collect from, and deliver to, small places. Hence, perhaps paradoxically, the logistics system in modern transport has allowed the links associated with globalization to be felt well beyond the larger sea- and airport cities of the world. That has made the sea container (and on some continents the parcel delivery system) almost ubiquitous.
Global Transport and Change within Cities Transport systems have long provided one cornerstone in the structure of a metropolitan area as seaports stimulated commercial zones nearby and rail stations generated passenger and freight-handling facilities. Today, the airport is the key focus of movement of people into and
428
Transport and Globalization
out of a city. At the same time airfreight has increased, so that the warehouses and storage facilities that once surrounded the seaport have been replicated (at a larger scale) around airports. In addition, the construction of hotels and business parks has made the airport a new commercial center in a number of cities. At the same time the hub role of some cities, which involves handling of freight at a much greater physical scale than in the past, has challenged the fortunes of the original seaports and rail yards. The traffic associated with these new transport systems, and the storage space needed, has created many local planning problems. In some cities, airports, seaports, and rail terminals have been relocated to the outer fringe. Special local solutions, including new road or rail links dedicated to freight movement across a city, have been adopted to accommodate (and redirect) the freight traffic. Where new capacity cannot be provided cities have managed to expand and retain activity through physical extension, along with innovative management, of existing facilities: Singapore and Hong Kong illustrate that outcome with seaport planning, while London and Chicago show the way in airport planning. In many cities, however, old port and rail yards remain unused and derelict, reminders of the forces of change in the global transport system. Only a few have become potential redevelopment sites (notably the redevelopment of London Docklands). The relocation of transport facilities to suburban and even distant fringe locations has contributed to the spread of urban development in large metropolitan areas. That outcome reflects the power of logistical systems to connect producers to one another and to consumers, which in effect has spread the benefit of some agglomeration economies across the whole of a metropolitan area rather than being available just at its core. In effect, some suburban or fringe sites are now effective locations for many businesses, even those serving global markets. In overview, then, globalization is the long shadow of the transport system. Over time, transport has changed in technical terms, and in its management and organization. As it has done so it has usually involved more of the world (although concentrated in some parts), more of the cities (although concentrating on some at the expense of others), and has often shifted the focus of metropolitan development to outer and fringe locations. That complex set of outcomes means an understanding of the impact of globalization is difficult to comprehend without
understanding the current stage and trends within transport. See also: Global Commodity Chains; Global Production Networks; Globalization and Transnational Corporations; Transport Geography.
Further Reading Burchardt, A. (1971). A hypothesis about Gateway Cities. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 61, 269--285. Goetz, A. (1992). Air passenger transportation and growth in the US urban system 1950–1987. Growth and Change 23, 217--238. Gordon, P., Richardson, H. W. and Yu, G. (1998). Metropolitan and non-metropolitan employment trends in the US: Recent evidence and implications. Urban Studies 35, 1037--1058. Hesse, M. (2004). Logistics and freight transport policy in urban areas: A case study of Berlin Brandenburg/Germany. European Planning Studies 12, 1035--1053. Ivy, R. I., Fik, T. J. and Malecki, E. (1995). Changes in air service connectivity and employment. Environment and Planning A 27, 165--179. O’Connor, K. (1995). Airport development in Southe East Asia. Transport Geography 3, 269--279. O’Connor, K. (1996). Airport development: A Pacific Asian perspective. Built Environment 22, 212--223. O’Connor, K. (2003). Global air travel: Toward concentration or dispersal? Journal of Transport Geography 11, 83--92. O’Connor, K. and Scott, A. (1992). Airline services and metropolitan areas in the Asia Pacific region 1970–1990. Review of Regional and Urban Development Studies 4, 240--253. Rodrigue, J.-P. (1994). Transportation and territorial development in the Singapore extended metropolitan region. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 15, 56--74. Smith, D. S. and Timberlake, M. (1998). Cities and the spatial articulation of the world economy through air travel. In Cicantell, P. & Bunker, S. (eds.) Space and Transport in the World System, pp 213--240. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. The Economist. (2006). The Physical Internet. A Survey of Logistics, 379(8482), (June 17).
Relevant Websites http://www.logisticsquarterly.com Ideas for Logistics and Transportations-Magazine. http://outsourced-logistics.com The Global Supply Chain authority. http://www.tli.gatech.edu/ The Supply Chain and Logistic Institute. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTLF/Resources/lpireport.pdf The World Bank. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/freightplanning U.S. Department of Transportation. http://www.worldcargoalliance.com World Cargo Alliance.
Glossary Containerization The use of a box with internationally agreed dimensions for the shipment of goods. Gateway City The first place of contact of a transport network in a nation or region. Global Cities Concentrations of the production of high-level services and the focus of international commercial links between nations. Hubs Concentrations of passenger and/or freight traffic. Intermodal Movement of freight between transport modes. Logistics The comprehensive organization of the movement of freight. Production Systems The ways that firms arrange the collection of raw materials and/or components and the delivery of final goods. Supply Chains Links within and between firms for the movement of goods. Transport Systems The organization of transport by routes and modes.
Globalization involves the dispersal of production across the globe. Transport systems of various kinds have enabled that dispersal to take place. This can be seen in historic examples as production took tentative steps from a small known world to a global network. It is apparent today in the tightly organized production systems that involve collection and distribution to and from sites spread within and between continents on regular timetabled services. These services tend to favor hub cities, which now stand out as the key players within most transport systems. These changes have reorganized spaces within cities, as airports have emerged as new centers of activity, seaports and airports have been relocated, and new transport infrastructure built to cope with the movement of freight and passengers. Change continues with some smaller cities, and the fringes of cities, feeling the impact of new transport technologies and methods.
Introduction Transport is perhaps the sine qua non of globalization. In a very broad sweep of history, the stages in the spread of production across the globe are closely linked to eras in transport systems. These eras appeared following the
424
efforts of explorers and then matured as technicians refined the ships, trains, trucks, and eventually planes to carry people and freight. Through their evolution and maturation, these methods of transport extended the mobility, speed, and reach of goods and services of firms, merchants, and also of people. Taking advantage of these gains enabled firms to expand by accessing new and often cheaper sources of raw materials, as well as by supplying larger markets. Realizing those opportunities needed new management skills in trade and transport operation. Those with the requisite skills in effect managed the global economy, and reshaped the size, location, and internal organization of cities where they worked. The pressure of those forces is still being felt with some new cities playing a role in global transport, new skills being applied in old cities, and new patterns emerging within them to accommodate new needs.
A Historical Perspective on Globalization and Transport The global economy emerged in stages. For a time it was expressed in small amounts of trade around the Mediterranean Sea, and into the agricultural communities of the Middle East and beyond. A series of cities emerged along the transport routes across what was a small part of that small current world. Better organization allied to higher standards in shipping and land transport spread the reach of this trade and eventually very long supply chains connected Western Europe to much of Asia. Many of these supply chains were organized via Venice. Merchants there, familiar with a range of sea and land transport systems, were able to connect sources of materials and supply markets that were long distances away to their east and also to their west. Venice became in its time what we now call a ‘global city’. Later, sea transport improvements would redefine the scale and scope of the global economy in terms of ocean frontages rather than inland caravan routes; the capacity to manage and direct this new set of supply chains fell to Atlantic coast rather than Mediterranean cities. Amsterdam was especially prominent in this era. The importance of ocean frontages was then enhanced by land transport improvements. First canals, then rail, and eventually road linkages enabled the goods from the sea to be carried to and from the resources and markets inland. What followed was not only industrial expansion on a massive scale, most obviously in northwestern Europe, but also the accelerated expansion into new territories associated with colonialization. In the colonies,
Transport and Globalization
ocean-based points of contact provided the foundation for subsequent urban settlement of continents, and eventually nations. The colonial cities dotted along the US, Canadian, Australian, African, Latin American, and Asian coastlines provided the local infrastructure for supply chains using global sea transport and regional (and local) land transport to connect farmers, and miners in many places across the globe to factories and consumers in Europe. Return voyages bought consumer goods and the equipment needed for colonial management and development. Shipping was the core element of these supply chains and provided the exotic as well as the low-cost supplies to Europe, while also providing access to large new markets. Steady technical improvements in shipping meant that transport that was once scarce, difficult, and unpredictable became more reliable. The nation (Britain), and the city (London) that managed much of the new arrangements in shipping gained most from this era. In the colonies, a gradual sorting out of the importance of places took place as shipping service began to select some ports over others. Places that acted as gathering points or key stops along the way had special prominence. Singapore owes its emergence as major port to that effect. The management of the colonial networks eventually required better contact and electronic communication systems were developed. These snaked tentatively across the globe, following some of the sea routes and focusing on the large colonial seaports. The skeletal structure they created has been replicated in the complex webs of optic fibers that now span the globe. In a more recent period, and in another part of the globe, the location and growth in economic activity was also closely linked to the utilization of sea transport. A new focus of economic activity in Asia emerged once transport innovations allowed large-scale shipping of coal, iron ore, and oil. Those innovations were eventually reflected in the global domination of the steel mills of Japan and later Korea. That steel was later built into global exports of cars, ships, and industrial machinery. Around the same time the mobility of all sorts of industrial goods, and the role of shipping, was increased substantially once a simple standard container was adopted by the world’s shipping lines. This piece of equipment meant that goods could be packed in one part of the world and moved easily to any other part of the world, lifted from ship to train to truck before arriving intact at a customer’s factory or warehouse. The scope and significance of this simple physical move was expanded substantially when digital information was added to the box, and the data transmitted by global telecommunications systems. The optically scanned code on the side of the box, connected to the shipping manifest, showing delivery arrangements at the destination enabled finely articulated logistics systems to be developed and run on predetermined schedules. Today, much of the
425
stock for sale in the retail stores in the US or Western Europe was packed into a container on an industrial estate somewhere in China several weeks earlier. The order for the container load might have come from a US warehouse computer connected both to the factory in China, and to a transport company (with sea, rail, and road connections) that would arrange the pickup and delivery of the container. This new reliability and flexibility in intermodal transport has enabled major redirections in the organization of production. Globalization is now expressed in production systems that fragment production into separate processes located across the world. It is now common for the finance and management, design, component production, and assembly of a good or service to be located in many different places. Final deliveries are made to a wide array of destinations. These global production systems only work when predictable global sea and air logistical services are available. This logistical capacity can have a direct role in production systems where delivery times, and their flexibility, are built into production planning. In fact, in some firms corporate structure and organization has been reshaped to coordinate production in time as well as in space. This ease of transport has changed the pattern of trade. Rather than one nation’s goods or resources moving to another nation where they are not available, today’s trade is made up of complex and multidirectional movement of the same goods and services between individual firms. For example, car parts and cars cross the Atlantic and the Pacific in containers in both directions as producers based in the US, Japan, and Europe draw upon supplies from, and arrange assembly in, places as diverse as Brazil, Mexico, and Thailand. Similarly, trade in services is greatest between North America and Europe, the two leading sites of service production. That exchange accounts for the very substantial amount of business travel on aircraft between those two continents. This new level of mobility of goods and services has been grafted on to an international trading economy that emerged over the previous 400–500 years. That graft has not been a simple match however, as the focus of traffic has changed and new ports, new air transport hubs, new rail, and road links have emerged. Once again, those capable in the management and organization of the new transport tasks have become prominent. Today that includes firms associated with the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai, as well as a shipping company from Copenhagen (Maersk) and an air freight company centered at Memphis (Federal Express). At the same time some of the old cities have retained their role in the management of the new network. For example, the Baltic Exchange (established in the eighteenth century) still provides a global market place for sea and air freight from its location in the City of London. Hamburg, too, remains as an influential operator in transport and logistics.
426
Transport and Globalization
Geographic Impacts of Global Transport The examples cited above show how the evolution in transport technology has been associated with the steady and evolving globalization of the world economy. That evolution has had some distinctive impacts. Many of these emerge from the geographically selective character of transport services. That can be seen initially in the linear connection between an origin and a destination that is provided by a mode of transport. This linearity creates a geographic selectivity first in which points are connected, and second in the benefits it offers places along the way. Hence, the caravan routes across Central Asia, the shipping routes across the Mediterranean, the shipping routes along the coasts of Africa and India, the rail net across the US, and airline routes from Asia to Europe all have a linearity, and all have created narrow corridors of impact across vast continents. Some places along these routes emerged as markets, production sites, or centers of administration. Those outcomes narrowed the local and regional impact of globalization and privileged some places over others. That privilege is felt especially in ‘gateway cities’. Gateway cities are places where global transport systems make local contact. Their role is best seen in the port cities on colonial coastlines, but their effect would have been felt in the caravan staging points of Central Asia, can be seen at rail junctions and termini, and now in the role played by major airports in cities. The transport privilege of a gateway city emerges because it offers first access to global goods and services and may have frequent services. It can be a place of management of the transport system, requiring effort in the organization of physical goods and information, dispersing inward supplies and assembling outgoing goods; that means it is a place of local trading, as inbound and outbound goods and services are sold by local merchants. Finally it has a set of functions (offices, storage facilities, technical servicing, and so on) not needed in other cities, which enriches its commercial activity. The gateway city effect was important in the development of New York, Montreal, San Francisco, Melbourne, Sydney, and Mumbai. Today, Hong Kong and Shanghai draw much of their vitality from their role as gateway cities in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangste Delta, respectively. These experiences illustrate how the operation of the transport system itself creates a locally uneven impact of globalization.
The Changing Geographic Impact of Transport That uneven impact has been refined and changed as each transport system has evolved and in some cases replaced. This evolution has usually been expressed in
both size and speed of vehicles. As ships, planes, and trains became larger and technically advanced in terms of speed and fuel consumption, the initial short stages between linear or coastal patterns of transport were gradually extended. Some earlier stopping points were bypassed and some original gateway cities were no longer needed as new technologies were adopted. Later, new standard roads would bypass some smaller towns, while high-speed rail services operated with fewer stops. This outcome is well illustrated in the concentration of sea traffic at a series of major nodes. Steady increases in the capacity and speed of container ships have changed the networks of shipping. Today, loads are gathered from regional supply as well as local sources for transshipment from small to large vessels in ports such as Hong Kong and Singapore before being moved across oceans (bypassing smaller ports enroute) to markets. In air transport, increased speed and size were provided by the introduction of jet engine, and the creation of the Boeing 747 aircraft. Both represented sudden major changes from existing technology. The first lifted the speed and range of aircraft considerably as the jet engine had much greater speed and lower fuel needs of the old piston engines. The Boeing 747 was a very major step-up in size and range, enabling many more passengers (and freight) to be flown between airports. The first effect of these changes was felt in a substantial reduction in the number of stopping points along international routes. As an example, in the petrol engine era there were up to five or six stops between Singapore or Hong Kong and London; the Boeing 707 reduced these to three or four; later the Boeing 747 would eliminate stops on this route altogether. Across the Atlantic, steady improvement in aircraft speed and capacity obviated the need for technical stops at Shannon (Ireland) and Gander (Canada). In the northern Pacific, jet aircraft were able to use great circle routes between the US and North (and later Southeast) Asia. Initially these routes involved Anchorage as a technical stop over, but soon the routes were flown nonstop. The technical capacity to fly great circle routes across the polar regions (facilitated by the adoption of global positioning systems) had another important consequence: northern and eastern US cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, and New York became as close to Asia as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Up until this time the latter cities had been the main gateways to Asia, fed by traffic across the central Pacific via Hawaii and Guam. Flying times to Europe were also reduced, and daily nonstop flights between Tokyo and London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt became common. Simultaneously, places like Honolulu, Anchorage, Mumbai, and Bahrain had less daily through traffic. The geographic effect of these technical developments in the jet aircraft network (especially the increase in the size of aircraft) was not limited simply to the
Transport and Globalization
bypassing of places along a route. As was occurring in the concentration of sea freight in containers, there was a gathering of larger numbers of passengers at a smaller number of places, labeled ‘hubs’. The large numbers of passengers were needed in part to justify the use of larger aircraft; this approach had a significant impact on the relative size of airports in Southeast Asia, with competition between Bangkok, Singapore, and Hong Kong for the regional hub role. In the US, the hub concept was used by airlines to reorganize their domestic services. Hub airports were fed by short links from surrounding cities, many of which had once been stops along the old trunk routes. As a result, hubs had more frequent and more diverse airline connections, so they began to assert some of the effects of the early gateway cities, providing good opportunities for business (and in many cases cheaper fares). Some were creations of the old transport system (such as London and New York), others reflected new patterns and capacity (Los Angeles and Singapore), others the home base of airlines (Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth, and Atlanta). In this way, the air transport system has redirected the urban effects of globalization. In fact, the hierarchy of global cities is now mirrored in the hierarchy of busy airports. Today’s large airport cities can be seen as a spatial expression of the working of the global economy. It is possible that outcome may be changing a little as airline services are increasing at mid-sized cities. That reflects the development of smaller long-haul aircraft that can provide point-to-point services to pairs of nonhub cities. Debate about whether the future will involve more very large aircraft flying from hub to hub, or more services between mid-sized cities on smaller aircraft, is ongoing. Similar change can be seen in the technical development in sea transport. Steady expansion in the size and speed of shipping reduced the need for stops on long routes, so removing the servicing and management roles from many places, and also their regular delivery of goods. The adoption of containers accelerated this selectivity; that change led to a steady rise in ship size, so that the hub system created for large and long-distance aircraft has been replicated by large and long-distance shipping services. Hub ports were fed by delivery from other cities; in some cases rail and road freight services facilitated the gathering and dispersal of containers to and from a hub, replacing earlier coastal services. The scale of container ships is continuing to rise, so that the hub-to-hub service seems likely to remain significant in the future. The data displayed in Table 1 provide an indication of just how powerful the hub system has become in global transport. Almost one-half of all the containers moved through the 100 busiest port cities are handled by those cities ranked in the top ten; the top 20 ports handle
427
Table 1 Shares of transport activity at top 100 airports and seaports 2002 Cities ranked in
Share of traffic Top 10 11 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 to 60 61 to 70 71 to 80 81 to 90 91 to 100
Sea ports
Air ports
Container movements TEUs
Passenger number
Air freight tons loaded
48.0 14.6 9.0 7.0 6.4 4.8 3.5 2.5 2.2 2.0 100.0
30.5 15.0 13.3 9.5 7.7 6.6 5.6 4.6 4.0 3.2 100.0
38.7 22.3 12.4 7.3 5.6 4.1 3.3 2.4 2.3 1.6 100.0
Source: Containerisation International 2002. Airports Council International 2002. Note: Data for cities with more than one port or airport have been merged.
almost two-thirds of the total. Air freight is similarly concentrated: the share of freight moving through the top ten airports as not quite as significant, but the top 20 account for 60% of the tonnage handled. Air passenger movements are less concentrated: one has to include the top 30 cities to account for 60% of all passenger movements. These outcomes illustrate that mix of size, speed, and reach of ships and planes has consolidated and strengthened hub operations. Although hubs are prominent, there is a well-developed technical capacity to manage the transshipment of goods from large to small ships, from ships to rail or road, from large planes to small planes, and from planes to trucks. That technical capacity (based on information technology) ensures that the transport system is well equipped to collect from, and deliver to, small places. Hence, perhaps paradoxically, the logistics system in modern transport has allowed the links associated with globalization to be felt well beyond the larger sea- and airport cities of the world. That has made the sea container (and on some continents the parcel delivery system) almost ubiquitous.
Global Transport and Change within Cities Transport systems have long provided one cornerstone in the structure of a metropolitan area as seaports stimulated commercial zones nearby and rail stations generated passenger and freight-handling facilities. Today, the airport is the key focus of movement of people into and
428
Transport and Globalization
out of a city. At the same time airfreight has increased, so that the warehouses and storage facilities that once surrounded the seaport have been replicated (at a larger scale) around airports. In addition, the construction of hotels and business parks has made the airport a new commercial center in a number of cities. At the same time the hub role of some cities, which involves handling of freight at a much greater physical scale than in the past, has challenged the fortunes of the original seaports and rail yards. The traffic associated with these new transport systems, and the storage space needed, has created many local planning problems. In some cities, airports, seaports, and rail terminals have been relocated to the outer fringe. Special local solutions, including new road or rail links dedicated to freight movement across a city, have been adopted to accommodate (and redirect) the freight traffic. Where new capacity cannot be provided cities have managed to expand and retain activity through physical extension, along with innovative management, of existing facilities: Singapore and Hong Kong illustrate that outcome with seaport planning, while London and Chicago show the way in airport planning. In many cities, however, old port and rail yards remain unused and derelict, reminders of the forces of change in the global transport system. Only a few have become potential redevelopment sites (notably the redevelopment of London Docklands). The relocation of transport facilities to suburban and even distant fringe locations has contributed to the spread of urban development in large metropolitan areas. That outcome reflects the power of logistical systems to connect producers to one another and to consumers, which in effect has spread the benefit of some agglomeration economies across the whole of a metropolitan area rather than being available just at its core. In effect, some suburban or fringe sites are now effective locations for many businesses, even those serving global markets. In overview, then, globalization is the long shadow of the transport system. Over time, transport has changed in technical terms, and in its management and organization. As it has done so it has usually involved more of the world (although concentrated in some parts), more of the cities (although concentrating on some at the expense of others), and has often shifted the focus of metropolitan development to outer and fringe locations. That complex set of outcomes means an understanding of the impact of globalization is difficult to comprehend without
understanding the current stage and trends within transport. See also: Global Commodity Chains; Global Production Networks; Globalization and Transnational Corporations; Transport Geography.
Further Reading Burchardt, A. (1971). A hypothesis about Gateway Cities. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 61, 269--285. Goetz, A. (1992). Air passenger transportation and growth in the US urban system 1950–1987. Growth and Change 23, 217--238. Gordon, P., Richardson, H. W. and Yu, G. (1998). Metropolitan and non-metropolitan employment trends in the US: Recent evidence and implications. Urban Studies 35, 1037--1058. Hesse, M. (2004). Logistics and freight transport policy in urban areas: A case study of Berlin Brandenburg/Germany. European Planning Studies 12, 1035--1053. Ivy, R. I., Fik, T. J. and Malecki, E. (1995). Changes in air service connectivity and employment. Environment and Planning A 27, 165--179. O’Connor, K. (1995). Airport development in Southe East Asia. Transport Geography 3, 269--279. O’Connor, K. (1996). Airport development: A Pacific Asian perspective. Built Environment 22, 212--223. O’Connor, K. (2003). Global air travel: Toward concentration or dispersal? Journal of Transport Geography 11, 83--92. O’Connor, K. and Scott, A. (1992). Airline services and metropolitan areas in the Asia Pacific region 1970–1990. Review of Regional and Urban Development Studies 4, 240--253. Rodrigue, J.-P. (1994). Transportation and territorial development in the Singapore extended metropolitan region. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 15, 56--74. Smith, D. S. and Timberlake, M. (1998). Cities and the spatial articulation of the world economy through air travel. In Cicantell, P. & Bunker, S. (eds.) Space and Transport in the World System, pp 213--240. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. The Economist. (2006). The Physical Internet. A Survey of Logistics, 379(8482), (June 17).
Relevant Websites http://www.logisticsquarterly.com Ideas for Logistics and Transportations-Magazine. http://outsourced-logistics.com The Global Supply Chain authority. http://www.tli.gatech.edu/ The Supply Chain and Logistic Institute. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTLF/Resources/lpireport.pdf The World Bank. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/freightplanning U.S. Department of Transportation. http://www.worldcargoalliance.com World Cargo Alliance.