Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
The calculation of an equilibrium is fundamental to the positive analysis of any economic system. In this sense it is no surprise that one would wish to calculate an equilibrium among spatially separated markets connected by a freight transportation system, for that problem is evidently basic to regional and national economic forecasting. When the spatially separated markets of interest are represented as nodes of a network, the freight system infrastructure as links, together with some additional nodes to model modal or carrier junctions and transfer points, and some attempt to capture the complex hierarchy of decisions inherent in freight transportation is made, we refer to this equilibrium problem as the “freight network equilibrium problem.” What is a surprise to the uninitiated is that a theoretically rigorous representation of such an equilibrium and its efficient computation can be quite difficult, and that these are, to some extent, unsolved problems. In this chapter we endeavor to make this last point clear, to review some of the recent advances that have been made and to suggest future research necessary to a complete understanding of freight network equilibrium.
At first glance the freight network equilibrium problem, as we have described it so far, seems essentially the same as the spatial price equilibrium problem discussed in the seminal words of Samuelson (1952) and Takayama and Judge (1971).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.