Mandatory ballast water management, resulting in an increase of required freight rates on the St. Lawrence Seaway, could induce a modal shift away from marine transportation. Such a shift may cause such side effects as increased air pollution and lower transportation safety. A multinomial logit model is built to predict the changes in market shares of competing transportation modes. Two wheat transportation scenarios are studied. The results show that only a small shift, if at any, will accompany mandatory measures for ballast water treatment. To evaluate the trade-offs between the side effects brought by any modal shifts and the NIS invasion effects, the analytic hierarchy process is used to analyze the preferences of federal and state decision-makers. Analysis of questionnaires shows that among the three alternatives, ballast water exchange, filtration/UV, and heat, ballast water exchange proved to be the favored method. (A) "Reprinted with permission from Elsevier".
Abstract