Disadvantages Of Rail Transportation

Of the three forms of transportation, rail has the highest fixed costs, motor carriers the greatest variable costs, and air transport, the greatest variable costs of service and logistics optimization. Starting with rail, the cost structure has the highest fixed cost components, driven by infrastructure and terminal costs. Rail is therefore the most difficult to negotiate a lower transportation cost for, as the fixed costs form an inflexible pricing structure for retail service providers. The quality of rail service varies significantly across nations and regions as well, leading to greater variability in costs when a shipment moves across national and regional boundaries. Given the highly fixed cost structure of rail systems, there is significant room for improvement from an efficiency standpoint. The use of containerization is continually adding to greater efficiencies to this mode of transport (Jennings, Holcomb, 1996).

Chopra, S., & Meindl, P. (2012). Supply chain management: Strategy, planning, and operation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.

Supply-chain management consists of developing a strategy to organize, control, and motivate the resources involved in the flow of services and materials within the supply chain. A supply chain strategy, an essential aspect of supply chain management, seeks to design a firm’s supply chain to meet the competitive priorities of the firm’s operations strategy.

List and explain all aspects of supply chain management. pg 416; week5 lecture, pg 4;

Supply chain management is a practice that involves the planning, supervision, and implementation of strategies and controls to direct the movement of goods and services provided to customers. The intent of this essay is to incorporate a synopsis of existing literature and to provide the reader with a general understanding of how supply chain management correlates with the organizational design and structure of modern firms. The essay comprehensively reviews the components of supply chain management and their integration with functional areas within an organization. The information presented in this essay

railroads in the 20th century continued to develop. Between 1970 and 2000 the rails freight

Chase, R., & Jacobs, F. R. (2011). Operations and Supply Chain Management (13th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Russell, R. S., & Taylor,B. Operations and Supply Chain Management,8th Edition. Wiley, 2013-12-02. VitalBook file.

The difference in the share of railways in the USA and the EU is due to the geographical distances between cities in the USA and the EU. Railways cost less to operate and have fewer emissions when compared to trucking. Yet, the use of railways is limited for the following reasons: (i) building its infrastructure is very costly; (ii) the long lead time required for developing the infrastructure; (iii) consistent-high-volume of the freight traffic is needed for economic viability; and (iv) the need for trucks for the distribution to the final destinations. Trucks have many advantages over other modes of transportation, especially that they provide last mile delivery. Trucks, as compared to railways, ships, or planes have the most flexibility in reaching a destination, and the upfront

W.C. Benton, J. (2010). Purchasing and Supply Chain Management (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Russell, R. S., & Taylor III, B. W. (2014). Operations and Supply Chain Management, 8th edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Bozarth, C.C. and Handfield, R.B. (2012). Introduction to operations and supply chain management (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall

(Bowersox, D.J., Closs, D.J., and Cooper, M.B. (2010). Supply Chain Logistics Management. (3rd Edition) New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Initially, there is the mode of land transportation. Roads, rails and pipelines fall under this category. These land logistics are very important because they extend the delivery services for air and water transport from airports and seaports. The main transport mode of land logistics are railway, road freight and pipeline transport. The advantage of railway transport is that it has carrying capacity and lower influences by weather conditions