176 Book reviews / Journal of Air Transport Management 6 (2000) 173}177
World Transport Research: Selected Proceedings of
the 8th World Conference on Transport Research
(4 Volumes)
Hilde Meersman, Eddy Van de Voorde and Willy Win-
kelmans (Eds.); Pergamon, Oxford, 1999, ISBN 0-08-
043590-4
These volumes contain nearly a quarter of the 893
papers presented at the 8th World Conference on Trans-
port Research (WCTR) held in Antwerp in 1998. The
conference covered all modes of transport including
a number of sessions dealing with various aspects of air
transport. These latter papers are largely contained in
Vol. 1 of the set (Transport Modes and Systems) although
there are one or two contributions scattered through the
other volumes. The proceedings embrace papers from
a large number of countries and there is considerable
diversity in the themes they cover. The WCTR Society
holds conferences every three years and it brings together
participants from around the globe and from a wide
range of academic disciplines. This is re#ected in the
papers that are contained in these volumes. They are
diverse but, as is often the case even when there is
selectivity, they are also somewhat variable in quality.
Nevertheless, the volumes do contain some interesting
material.
Perhaps the major concern of the aviation papers was
that of how the sector should be regulated and how
airlines should respond to changing regulatory regimes.
To this end there were several papers dealing with mat-
ters related to airline alliances. Some of these, such as the
contribution of Park and Zhang were technical in their
orientation and sought to look at the implications of
di!ering types of alliance. More immediately manage-
ment orientated is the paper by Brewer and Hooper that
draws upon the wider literature on organizational struc-
tures to argue that most current airline alliances are not
really strategic in nature but rather driven by needs to
circumvent institutional constraints. In di!erent circum-
stances, for example with the relaxation of bilateral air
service agreements, the nature of these alliances could
well be di!erent with more organizational integration
between and within the airlines involved. Oum, Zhang
and Zhang also look at how airlines are adjusting to the
new market driven environment and pay particular at-
tention to the way leasing can facilitate more commercial
#exibility. On the fare side, Shyr and Li consider airline-
pricing strategies in a competitive situation drawing on
the Taipai}Kaohsiung market for data to calibrate their
static and dynamic games models. My own rather mod-
est contribution to the alliance debate looks at the poten-
tial safety implications of cartelization in the sector.
There would seem to be no real long-term concerns on
this account.
It is not only the airlines that are being confronted by
regulatory change but also infrastructure. As we see be-
low there are several papers on airports in the collection
but there is also an interesting institutional one on the
commercialization of Canadian air navigation system.
The idea that navigation systems are public goods, and
thus normal commercial criteria does not apply * des-
pite the long-standing ability of the UK's Trinity House
to charge ships when passing their lighthouses * slowly
seems to be fading. In the Canadian paper by Raymon
Kaduck there is o!er some insights into an alternative
approach.
Much of the previous work on how regulatory systems
impact on the aviation industry have largely been fo-
cused on the US domestic market and often been rather
broad in their coverage. The reasons for this being that
the dramatic and almost instantaneous shift in US policy
in the late 1970s provided an important sea-change that
could conveniently be quantitatively analyzed. The avail-
ability of good data added to the enthusiasm of analysts
to focus their attention on the US market. Changes in the
intra-European market since the enactment of the three
EU &Packages' over the past decade now o!ers a second
potential case study arena. The collection from the
WCTR conference contains two interesting papers look-
ing at some aspects of this new regulatory environment.
Keith Mason's survey-based work is concerned with
short-haul business travel and "nds that market
liberalization has resulted in segmentation of this sector
re#ecting a move to be closer to customers. A more
macro-driven, econometric analysis is contained in the
paper by MartmH n, Nomela and Romero that focuses on
the cost structure of European airlines. Not surprisingly
perhaps, they "nd that public ownership is detrimental to
cost minimization as well as economies of scale.
Dennis extends the European analysis by developing
a framework for forecasting the connecting tra$c
through European hub airports. The analysis emphasizes
the capacity constraints that exist and the likely role they
will play in the way the European air transport network
will evolve. This issue of &spill' * essentially passengers
lost when demand at airports exceeds supply * is dealt
with in a more generally and in a technical manner by
William Swann. One way European airports could re-
spond to the pressures that are mounting on their capa-
city is through increased cooperation and this is one
theme addressed by Drewe and Janssen. This analysis is
undertaken in the context of both freight and passenger
tra$c and, rather surprisingly given its growing import-
ance, is one of the few places where air freight transport is
considered in the collection. The important question of
how a new airport (infrequently as they actually appear)
is the concern of Kuroda, Takebayashi and Hirai. They
take the New Chuba International Airport being plan-
ned in Japan as the basis for applying a Stackelberg
equilibrium model.
Oum's paper moves away from Europe and seeks to
assess the challenges posed to Asian carriers as the US
 Book reviews / Journal of Air Transport Management 6 (2000) 173}177
pursues it Open Skies strategy. In particular it highlights
the need for more fully developed hub systems in Asia
and the potential long-term dangers for Asian carriers of
being sucked into strategic alliances dominated by large
US airlines.
While the aim here has largely been to review what can
be found regarding air transport in Vol. 1 of the proceed-
ings, those concerned with aviation would also be
advised to dip into other areas covered in the books. At
one level there are policy issues such as de"ning the
appropriate international response to strategic alliances,
how to allocate scarce terminal space and concerns over
handling global warming gas emissions that are parallel-
ed in the maritime sector. Further, the willingness of
many investors to put their money into a sector such as
air transport where the historic rate of return in many
markets is dismally low perhaps re#ects a certain cavalier
attitude to commercial considerations. Nevertheless, the
0969-6997/00/$ - see front matter  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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177
air transport market is becoming more competitive and
less the domain of the aviation enthusiast. This suggests
that there are lessons to be learned from other transport
industries and that they are often well worth seeking out.
Having said that, and attended the conference, it is still
sad that participants tended to cluster around their
own niche, modal areas. The complete set of proceedings
does, though, provide a useful way of "nding out
what is happening elsewhere as well as in the narrow "eld
of aviation without the social degradation of sharing
a conference room with people specializing in other
modes.
Kenneth Button
School of Public Policy, George Mason University,
4400 University Drive,
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444, USA
E-mail address: kbutton@gmu.edu.