One of the benefits of writing this column is that it provides an opportunity to comment on issues relating to our local business community that might otherwise not be noticed.

There was a very good example of this last week.

We live in a world of league tables where every aspect of our lives is subject to measurement and comparison with others. Some of these tables are quite local; others national; and a few make global comparisons.

The table published last week by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) was for the Top 100 Biomedicine Universities. To be frank, I initially glanced over this with only passing interest.

There were Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford in first, second and third place respectively (hurrah for Oxbridge and the UK!).

But, as I scanned down the list, there was York in 34th position, not having featured at all last year.

Now this is quite astonishing, not least when you see that our nearest neighbours in the table are Auckland, the University of California at Los Angeles, Fudun (China), Princeton and Hong Kong.

It is rather like discovering that York City Football Club has gained access to the European Champions' League - except this is not fantasy. What an accolade for York's biomedical researchers.

What this tells us, yet again, is that we are increasingly playing in the global economy and that we should spend less time worrying about competition within regions, or even nationally, than in considering how to compete effectively on the international scene. That is where the real comparisons need to be made!

Among other things, being internationally competitive means having world class transport and communications links. Researchers need to be highly mobile to ensure that they are up with the world's best.

In York we are well-placed for rail communications and not too bad, given our geographic position, in respect of intercity roads. It is air travel where we have a continuing, and serious, problem.

Overseas visitors arrived tired and testy after the long haul up from Gatwick or Heathrow; the present rail journey to and from Manchester airport is hardly one to be recommended to senior business executives or researchers; and Leeds-Bradford has never really taken off as a significant long-haul airport the for business travellers.

So there's a more than ordinary sense of expectation about the £80 million Robin Hood Airport which opened in April just outside Doncaster. It has the potential to transform international travel to and from this part of Yorkshire.

On a recent visit I was impressed with the terminal, the car parking and the security but less so with access. I followed the very recently-completed signage. This was a mistake.

Passing M18 junction 3, which is within a couple of miles of the airport, the signed route conducts you more than 15 miles via junction 4 and then on a wide, traffic-heavy, loop almost into the middle of Doncaster before leading back to the airport, under the point on the motorway that had been passed eight miles earlier.

This is because there apparently remains a dispute about direct access from junction 3. "Integrated transport policy" has a hollow ring to it.

As Peter Sears, strategic planning director at Peel Holdings - owners and operators of the airport - said: "We are conscious that access to an airport is a key consideration for passengers when planning a trip."

Yes, but if we acknowledge the crucial importance of international business travel, as we must, then we need to be able to fly people in and out of the region efficiently and then provide fast, clean, effective transport systems within the region.

Otherwise excellence in league tables will be of little longer-term relevance.

Updated: 10:41 Wednesday, October 19, 2005