Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Within these forecasts it is anticipated that there will be two main drivers of future
growth: firstly, a continuation of the processes of globalization mapped out at the begin-
ning of this section and, secondly, dramatic growth in the market for e-commerce-based
activities. For companies such as DHL, FedEx, TNT Express and UPS, e-commerce and
the e-tail revolution are seen as possibly the biggest potential for growth for their services.
An estimated US$1.6 trillion worth of business per year is forecast to be transacted via
the Internet by 2003 (Bates, 2000). Delivery speed and convenience are seen as vital
requirements by e-business, and integrated carriers often provide the favoured delivery
solution with their global reach, time-definite and rapid-delivery services (Bates, 2000).
However, these anticipated developments are not cost neutral; their associated social and
environmental costs are described in the following section.
E
MERGING
ENVIRONMENTAL
PROBLEMS
While the integrators have substantial road-based truck fleets at their disposal, it is
considered that aviation will play an increasingly significant role in their ability to
meet increasingly tight delivery schedules and pick-up deadlines. To maximize the effi-
ciency of their service, this inevitably means aircraft operating from airports that are
close to centres of commercial activity and, hence, close to centres of population - and
the nature of integrator operations means that these aircraft will be operated almost
exclusively during the night. Currently, around 100 aircraft distribute over 2000 tonnes
of packages across Europe every night of the working week; in recent years, such air-
craft movements are also beginning to occur at weekends (Kingsley-Jones, 2000).
Communities around airports receive the benefits of income and employment
associated with the direct, indirect and induced effects of air-freight activity. In the
UK, this has been calculated as somewhere between 60,000 and 82,500 jobs
(DETR, 2000). In Europe, it has been estimated that 400,000 people depend upon
the integrators directly for their employment (Jones, 2001). The precise number of
those employed indirectly as a consequence of the integrators' activities is unknown,
but is likely to be in the order of a further 200,000.
However, since the first international aircraft noise regulations were imposed in
1972, there has been considerable growth in the level of public opposition to the
disbenefits of aviation - namely, aircraft noise exposure, air pollution, vortex dam-
age, surface travel congestion and deterioration of water quality (Moxon, 2000;
Caves and Gosling, 1999; Archer, 1993; Bannister and Button, 1993; Royal Commis-
sion, 1994)
.
Unsurprisingly, night-time noise and sleep disturbance are perceived to
be much worse than day-time disturbances (Smith, 1989; Pedoe et al, 1996). In
general, it appears that the main effect of environmental restrictions to date has been
to force the integrated carriers to reorganize their networks to avoid noise-sensitive
airports and to encourage them to invest in quieter aircraft. At a stroke, environ-
mental regulations can remove any competitive advantage that an integrator may
have achieved as a result of locating at a particular airport, and may threaten the
delivery capability of the supply chain.
The night-time noise impact of such cargo aircraft operations upon local com-
munities is becoming of increasing significance; so much so that public opposition
to such operations has led to the imposition of night-time curfews at airports. Prolif-
