Thesis
A real time analysis of a major transportation disruption: the Columbia-Snake River extended lock outage
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2011
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101158
Abstract
The ability of a transportation system to handle changes is extremely important to Washington State, an economy that relies on an efficient transportation system to sustain commerce. The infrastructure of the U.S. transportation system is becoming old in physical capability and functional performance. Maintaining this structure causes the loss of sections of the system as rebuilding occurs. To best plan for these outages decision makers need to understand how shippers and customers react prior to, during and after these disruptions. This research, by taking advantage of a current major system disruption in Washington State, will provide that empirical understanding and develop a methodology for examining the overall impacts on transportation efficiency and the environment. The Columbia-Snake River System in the Pacific Northwest recently underwent a massive sustained lock outage, eliminating barge transportation. The closure of these locks had impacts on shippers, roads, alternative modes, ports, decision makers and the environment as these entities reacted to the temporary loss of this transportation mode. The first major phase of this project initially models the entire system on the river as well as the surrounding transportation system prior to the closure. The second major phase traces and models the movements during the actual closure. Finally, movements after the closure are investigated to identify lingering effects. The main focus is on actual firms' logistic decisions in the three phases of the disruption of the system and the consequent economic and environmental effects.
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Details
- Title
- A real time analysis of a major transportation disruption
- Creators
- Sara Virginia Simmons
- Contributors
- Ken Casavant (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Economic Sciences, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525392001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis