A supply-demand study of practice in rail logistics higher education

This paper includes a study conducted to analyse the current state of supply and demand for higher education in rail logistics. More specifically the study presented consists of two surveys, as follows. The first survey, Supply Survey, explores existing transport and logistics-related courses and educational programmes offered in higher education institutions. The second survey, Demand Survey, examines demands for rail logistics higher education and aims to understand the current needs for higher education in the sector. This paper shows that a spectrum of rail, freight transport and logistics related courses and programmes exist, however there is a strong need for a more specific training and education offering operations management skills needed to improve the company performance, efficiency and quality of service provided. B T P S Brazilian Transportation Planning Society www.transport-literature.org JTL|RELIT


Introduction
The freight transport industry constitutes a major enabling factor for most economic and social activities taking place in the world.Global changes and environmental issues have come into agenda.The freight transport is now seen as a green logistics concept involving green transport modes.We are witnesses of an explosive growth of freight moving around the world.Globalization and integration have contributed to significant changes in the way we have lived.New mobility patterns are observed.Population in the cities is on the increase.
Modern society has been tackling negative impacts on living conditions such as congestions and pollutions.And it appears that these problems are not going to disappear any time soon.
Within the freight transport industry more efficient, reliable and environmentally-friendly freight operations are needed more than ever before if this industry is to comply with the Kyoto Protocol and other treaties, international agreements and framework conventions on climate changes and the environment.
It is believed that "Rail" will set up new "strategic, tactical and operational" concepts, policies and practice for new generation "green" freight services based on innovative logistics principles.
On the other hand, it is stated in the Freight Transport Logistics Action Plan of the European Commission (COM 2007) that today, training provided by universities and other institutions varies greatly in Europe.Efforts are required to focus and enhance the qualifications of logistics personnel, notably by strengthening competence in transport and to support lifelong learning.
It is expected that in the future, jobs related to rail logistics will require a higher level of skills and better qualifications.Learning is a natural skill but good sources to learn from are needed.
One recent contribution to this global need is a multilateral curriculum development study that conducted a supply-demand analysis with the purpose of developing a portfolio of courses and modules on rail freight and logistics as an epicentre of creative thinking, emerging knowledge and deep learning that is ever growing.This paper presents two surveys (for simplicity: Supply Survey and Demand Survey) recently conducted as part of a wider curriculum development project to analyse supply-demand patterns for rail freight and logistics higher education.Specifically this paper is organised as follows: Section 1 introduces the objectives of the study and discusses the methodology employed.Section 2 elaborates on the supply survey conducted to analyse the current state of practice with educational programmes in transport and logistics in Higher Education Institutions.Section 3 presents the demand survey conducted to examine the current needs for rail logistics higher education.It should be noted that the focus of both surveys is on freight services.Section 4 is the final section of this paper and offers conclusions and future work.

Objectives
The main objective of this study is to analyse the supply-demand patterns of rail logistics higher education and hence understand the current needs of skills and qualifications in the sector to satisfy customer requirement and provide a service of good quality that generates healthy profits and more opportunities for business in the context of rail freight and logistics.

Methodology
The methodology employed in this study is a multi-method approach that includes a combination of activities such as state of the art/practice surveys and demand analysis, development of inventory of rail, transport and logistics curricula, courses and programmes, as well as analysis of collaborations between Academia and Industry in the sector.
More specifically a questionnaire has been developed to collect information for different levels of learning and structures of higher education such as single modules, bachelor courses, master courses, PhDs as well as programmes and patterns promoting mobility of staff and students.An online platform has been used for collection of information on existing relevant programmes in Higher Education Institutions (HSIs), where European HSIs were in focus.
The data collected has been processed and organised in clusters, such as curricula, programmes, institutions, etc which made it easier to read and analyse that data collected.
A second questionnaire has been developed to collect information for demands for rail logistics higher education.Rail freight and logistics companies have been approached for the purposes of this survey.The need for innovative learning and teaching methods in rail logistics higher education has also been researched.

Supply Survey
The objective of the Supply Survey was to analyse current educational programmes in transport and railway logistics offered in Higher Education Institutions.The survey aimed to understand if there are any gaps and issues in the existing transport and railway logisticsrelated educational programmes, which can be addressed by a new programme.
The Supply Survey has been conducted in two stages, as follows:  The first stage employed the online survey platform "SuperSurvey" to collect information for existing programmes in transport and rail logistics.The questionnaire developed for the purposes of the Supply Survey was addressed to professors, lecturers and teaching assistants as well as programme managers and directors, mainly from European institutions, involved in Masters Programmes in transport and logistics.
 The second stage employed a desk-top research method to identify and analyse rail logistics education projects that could be of interest to this research.The following projects have been identified and analysed: o EURNEXa rail research network of excellence contributing to a more competitive future European rail system via research and education activities organised in scientific poles; o TUNRAIL is a policy oriented measures project intended to "tune" and intensify the railway higher education knowledge exchange and collaboration between the o SKILLRAIL an EU project designing a sustainable framework, EURAIL "European University of Railway", for creation, dissemination and transfer of knowledge within the railway sector.
The information obtained from both the questionnaire -"Supply Survey -Stage one" and the desk-top research -"Supply Survey -Stage two" has been compiled and analysed.A total of 45 transport logistics-focused courses for Masters offered by HEIs have been identified, 33 out of which are for Masters (Table 1).The simple for this analysis consists of 15 European HEIs and 3 non-European HEIs from Australia, India and USA.For the purposes of the supply survey (Stage one) the questionnaire developed has been organized along key-words such as: Transport Engineering, Railway Engineering, Civil Engineering, Freight Transport, Logistics, Economics, etc.The participants in the survey were asked to choose one or more key-words from the list, and/or add new key-words if necessary, to best describe the relevant courses and programmes offered in their institutions.Figure 1 shows courses identified as described freight transport and logistics related keywords.It should be noted that the three most popular key-words describing freight transport and logistics courses, as understood by the participants in this survey were: intermodal terminals, intermodal transport and land transport: road and railway.
The Supply Survey conducted allowed to understand educational patterns and structures of curricula in the universities of the participants.As a result of it a list of compulsory and optional courses has been developed.Based on the list developed compulsory and optional courses for a new master programme in rail freight and logistics have been identified.Table 2 shows compulsory and optional courses for a new master programme in rail freight and logistics against all freight transport and logistics related courses identified.
The selection of course for a new master programme in rail freight and logistics, as presented in Table 2, was generally based on the frequency of their appearance in the programmes being studied.
The Supply Survey also examined whether the participating institutions in the survey: 1) cooperate with railway and logistics sectors; 2) conduct railway and logistics related research; 3) participate in any students' interchange programmes.
The results are presented in Table 3 showing that more HEIs cooperate with railway companies (about 80%) than with logistics companies (about 53%).On the other hand a great majority of the participating institutions in the Supply Survey, about 87% of the respondents stated that they conduct railway and logistics-related research and also provide opportunities for student and staff exchange, which suggests high levels of mobility in transport and logistics higher education.

Demand Survey
The objectives of the Demand Survey were to analyse demands for rail freight and logistics higher education based on the opinions of representatives from the transport logistics sector.
More specifically the aim was: 1. to collect information about demands for experts in rail freight and logistics; 2. to analyze all expectations for staff training; 3. to assess requirements for modern rail and logistics higher education.
The Demand Survey used the online platform SuperSurvey as well.The questionnaire designed was addressed at inviting senior management of rail, transport, logistics companies to participate in the survey.39 companies representing 17 countries responded to the call.
Table 4 shows number of companies per country who participated in the survey.The respondents to the survey are mainly from consultancies, international transport companies and transport departments at universities.The ratios between large-medium-small enterprises are as follows:  Large enterprises -36%;  Medium-sized enterprises -26%;  Small-sized enterprises -20%;  Micro-sized enterprises -18%.
It should be noted that 85% of the companies that took part in the survey operate in the European Union, where 64% of the respondents being on senior management positions in their companies and 13% of the respondents being operations managers and/or executives.
The results from Demand Survey showed that rail logistics-focused companies prefer to employ staff with at least a BSc degree in planning and management positions.It has been revealed that 93% of employees in "information systems in railway and logistics" hold a BSc or an MSc degree.
68% of the companies that participated in the survey conduct regular training for their staff (Table 5).
Over 50% of the respondents think, however, that the current educational courses offered in rail freight and logistics in HEIs are inadequate.
It has been found that great majority of the companies, about 83%, already collaborate with higher education institutions and nearly all agree that rail freight and logistics experts should be involved in rail higher education and training.This finding confirmed the fact that universities do collaborate with industry as revealed in Supply Survey as well.
Over 60% of the companies agreed that the key areas, as shown in Table 5, where performance could be improved via staff training are:  management of internal logistic processes;  technology and management of rail freight;  information systems in railway and logistics and supply chain management.

Conclusion
Both surveys conducted for the purposes of this research provided useful information about the current practice of supply and demand for rail freight and logistics higher education.The HEIs involved in this research have shown that a spectrum of rail, freight transport and logistics related courses and programmes exist, where collaborations with rail logisticsfocused companies are present.
EU and the US;o FUTURAIL an EU project contributing to the enhancement of the railway sector by fostering a better match between the human resources needs to make railways a more competitive and innovative sector and the offer of skills coming out of the different research based education and training institutions across Europe;

Figure 1 -
Figure 1 -Courses as described by Freight Transport and Logistics-related" Key-words 2

Table 1 -
Courses offered by Higher Education Institutions participated in Supply Survey 1

Table 4 -
Number of Companies from Different Countries represented in Demand Survey 5

Table 5 -
Demand Survey Questionnaire: selected questions and answers [all figures in %] 6

Table 6
Preferred Forms of Rail Freight and Logistics Higher Education 7Considering the specificity of your business the MSc programme in rail freight and logistics would employ: