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Competitive restraints on air travel: ground modes and telecommunications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

R. S. Shevell Professor*
Affiliation:
Stanford University

Extract

Future air transportation growth will be limited not only by the availability of personal disposable income for travel and by the maximum reasonable needs of business travellers, but also by competition from other modes such as the automobile, train, exotic guided ground transportation systems, such as magnetically levitated vehicles, buses and ships. Because of the aircraft's overwhelmingly superior speed and cost characteristics with respect to passenger ships, the passenger ship has been largely reduced to a recreational facility rather than a transportation mode. There are, of course, a few exceptions for short voyages between origins and destinations separated by water. But it is sufficiently clear that water transportation will not compete economically with air, except at very short ranges in a few unique situations, so that this mode will not be discussed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1978 

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References

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