FREIGHT, GATEWAYS AND MEGA‐URBAN REGIONS: THE LOGISTICAL INTEGRATION OF THE BOSTWASH CORRIDOR1
JEAN-PAUL RODRIGUE
Department of Economics & Geography, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York 11549, USA. E-mail:
Jean-paul.Rodrigue@Hofstra.edu
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Volume 95, Number 2, April 2004, pp. 147-161(15)
ABSTRACT
The geography of freight transportation evolves at various scales, but it is increasingly acknowledged that freight flows occurring at the local level are a result of global and regional economic processes. Internationally, distribution networks have expanded, namely through the division of production, manufacturing and consumption. This has been accompanied by a growth of the quantity of freight being shipped as well as by a complication of supply and distribution chains. Most of the geography of freight at this scale is derived from strategic considerations where issues such as production and subcontracting planning and the choice of hubs and routes are considered for implementing global supply chains. Locally, many activities concerned with freight distribution have been modified with new transport terminals and distribution centres in response to growing consumption as well as from the imperatives of fragmented supply chains. From their traditional location around central areas with prevalent port and rail linkages, transport terminals and distribution centres have shifted to peripheral locations where road and airport linkages are more prevalent. The geography of freight at this scale is mainly derived from operational considerations aimed at servicing the requirements of local distribution with well-known strategies such as just-in-time and door-to-door. This paper is concerned about the intermediate, or regional, scale of freight transportation with a specific emphasis on one of the largest urban region in the world; the Boston–Washington corridor (Bostwash). Transport corridors and urban regions represent the geographical scale of freight distribution where global and local distribution systems interact. They are the dominant spheres of production and consumption of freight distribution. Conceptual and empirical evidence to analyse the relationships between the geography of transport terminals, regional freight distribution and urban corridors is provided.
Key words: Freight transportation, transport corridors, mega-urban regions, logistics, BosWash/ BostWash
CONCLUSION
Urbanisation, as a regional process, resulted in spatial structures that are inherently complex and in which flows of people and freight require a high level of regulation. In many urban regions, corridors represent a paradigm of urbanisation over which it has been argued that freight distribution offers a perspective to understand their dynamics. They are serviced by complex freight distribution systems, linking global, national and regional distribution systems. Mega-urban regions, as logistically integrated entities, have adapted differently to a changing geography of production, consumption and distribution, as they are the main structures behind the international division of labour and production. This integration is supported by articulation points where an accumulation and a concentration of terminals, distribution centres and related activities coordinate local, regional and global freight distribution. Concomitantly to the specialisation and fragmentation of production, a specialisation of distribution is taking place.
Being one of the world’s leading urban regions, BostWash has experienced a qualitative and quantitative shift in its distribution. First, the corridor is imbedded in a system of national corridors of freight circulation that have expanded since NAFTA was established. Second, while regional freight movements are increasingly been linked with a growth of consumption, transport terminals have adapted to globally oriented supply chains, where inbound traffic far exceeds outbound traffic. Many distribution centres have been sub-urbanised to answer the requirements of additional space, to satisfy a dependence on trucking and to access the regional market in a timely fashion. A notable concentration of terminals and distribution centres has taken place along the Baltimore– Philadelphia–New Jersey–New York axis to offer a corridor-wide level of freight distribution. In turn, this has exacerbated congestion along major highway axis and next to major intermodal terminals. Among many of the strategies implemented to address the corridorwide challenges of freight distribution, a process of ‘sub-harbourisation’ is taking place within the corridor in addition to a modal shift from road to rail. How well these regional challenges will be addressed is of strategic importance to insure that present and future distributional needs of BostWash remains to be answered. The issue of freight corridors, logistics and distribution certainly deserves further investigations.
Notes
1. The author would like to thank Brian Slack for useful comments.
2. We prefer to use the term ‘BostWash’ instead of ‘BosWash’, as initially introduced by Gottmann (1961). Although it is less phonetically elegant, it provides a clearer reference to Boston and a better indication that it is a neologism.
3. The number of the interstate highway at the core of the corridor.
4. CMSAs are composed of two or more adjoining metropolitan areas which have demonstrated some economic linkage.
5. The I-95 Corridor Coalition, initiated in 1993, is an attempt to manage this entity by forming a regional partnership of major public and private transportation agencies, toll authorities and industry associations serving the Northeastern part of the United States from Maine to Virginia. It tries to offer a multi-jurisdictional approach to transportation issues covering multiple states.
6. A sub-corridor that can be labelled as ‘intermodal alley’.
7. The national average is 44%.
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