When introduced in 2000 the use of authorized consigneeand consignor status was not particularly popular among companies,despite its apparent advantages. The number of the statususers compared to the total number of exporters and importerswas almost negligible. The aim of this paper was to find outto which extent the simplified customs procedures have beenaccepted in Croatia through an objective outline of advantagesand disadvantages that the companies - users of the simplifiedprocedures face on a daily basis.

In this work the study focuses on:- determining the elements required to determine the locationfor the installation of the main signals,- calculated block lengths, and- calculations of optimal head ways, that have not been studiedin detail although they deserve special attention due totheir impact.Generally speaking, the signals are installed in compliancewith the local circumstances, i. e. according to the technicaland technological characteristics and conditions determinedby the traffic places of work they protect.The distribution and length of the blocks depend on: therailway line and its exploitation characteristics, structure andtype of trains that run on the railway line, traffic organisationand signalisation system, as well as technical and exploitationcharacte1istics of the traction vehicles and the rolling stock.What has to be considered is that the minimum section lengthcannot be shorter than the length of the braking distance, i. e.the length of the longest train which runs on the respective railwayline.The study of these parameters is supplemented by the calculationof the reduction in throughput capacity depending on thelack of uniformity in the operation of trains, which, in order tomaintain the design quality of the transportation se1vice, and inthe activities of establishing and implementing the business policyshouldn't be left out nor bypassed.

The functioning of the entire cargo flow process within atransport system lies on the assumption that the operation of allthe factors involved in the transport chain has been analysedwith the aim of bringing them in harmony and obtaining acompetitive price and high quality transportation service.Within the narrow catchment area, the ports of Trieste, Koper,and Rijeka have operated as competitors. All of them gravitateto the same natural hinterland, yet each of them operating onthe market with quite a different approach. In assessing thecompetitiveness of a certain transportation route involving hubports, land communications with the hinterland, and size of thecatchment area, the factors like port charges, inland transportcharges, and time required, are considered essential determinantsfor the selection of an optimum transportation route. Inorder to assess the overall competitiveness of a certain port regardingvarious factors involved (port charges, railway transportcharges, and time required), and comparing it with anotherport competitiveness level, this paper proposes that a collectivecompetitiveness index be introduced. The model isaimed at sorting out the most competitive ports according tocertain sorts of goods on the selected transportation routes.

Electronic journals have become an inevitable source ofscientific information. Their advantage, in relation to theprinted journals results from the characteristics of the media:they are available to all the interested users at the same time, beforethan the printed version, and they are not necessarily relatedto the location of the library. Since one of the basic roles oflibrarians in the process of disseminating scientific and professionalinformation is to provide the users with the informationwhich they need and when they need it, the librarians tend to informthe users primarily about the available electronic sources.The objective of this work is to systematize the journals in thefield of transportation sciences through an overview of journalsthat are available to the Croatian academic community in thedatabases of full text articles at the National and University Library,and the libraries of scientific institutions and faculties,which are gathered around the subsystems of the Scientific InformationSystem. In the aggregated databases of EBSCO Publishing,34 journals from the field of transportation scienceswere selected, and in the publisher databases the following wasselected: 8 titles by the publisher Kluwer Academic Publishing,24 titles by the publisher Elsevier Science, 6 titles by SpringerVerlag and 3 titles by the publisher John Wiley & Sons. For theselected full text journals the Impact factor (IF) was used fromthe Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The data on indexing andabstracting rates in the secondary databases for individual journalswere taken from the ULRICH'S database.

This article presents influence of globalization and containertraffic growth on the development of modem and sophisticatedcontainer tenninals. Due to the fast growing rate of theglobal container trade, every major port is under the pressure ofmeeting the projected capacity demand. An increasing size ofcontainer ships requires improving the port's ground handlingand distribution systems. An increase in the efficiency of thosesystems is mandatory to achieve further reduction of tenninaloperating costs on the one hand and to ensure sufficiently shortlay time for the ships in port on the other.

Maintenance organizations assist in ensuring that all aeronauticalproducts built, operated or maintained under controlconform to national and international ailworthiness standards.Ensuring that these standards are met involves a vastnetwork of organizations and personnel in general aviation.Standards and Procedures is responsible for the coordinationand management of all regional maintenance and manufacturingactivities, other than those related to Licensing andTraining. This includes acting as a central coordination andcommunication point for other Civil Aviation.

Significant and generally well-known advantages of railwayscompared to other transport branches, considered in theframework of the traffic development of Croatia and the widerenvironment, put an emphasis on the significance of high-qualityrailway connections in the Pan-European VB corridor. In orderto raise the quality of the traffic services on this railwayroute to the level that is required by the contempormy Europeancriteria, it needs to be modemized. This would at the same timecontribute to the integration into the overall European trafficsystem.The paper presents the possibilities of improving the mentionedrailway connecting of the Adriatic coast with other partsof Croatia and Europe. Special significance belongs to theRijeka-Zagreb-Botovo (Hungary) railway line. Significant improvementof the railway traffic in this area would be achievedby constructing a new railway line from Rijeka to Trieste, whichis the logical extension of the Pan-European VB corridor. Theconstruction of a railway line in the Adriatic-Ionian corridoralong the Adriatic coast from Trieste to Dubrovnik and furthertowards the border would contribute to better connecting of allthe regions, cities and ports which it would pass through and itwould have a positive impact on the overall economic developmentof the Republic of Croatia. Regarding the interests and requirementsof the intemational traffic, the Adriatic railway linewould present the shortest way of connecting the North-westEurope with the South of Europe and the Near East. The levelof service quality expected on the new line would contribute togreater attraction of cargo and passengers to the tourist, portand other capacities in Croatia.