Opportunities for OR in intermodal freight transport research: A review

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Abstract

Intermodal transport reflects the combination of at least two modes of transport in a single transport chain, without a change of container for the goods, with most of the route traveled by rail, inland waterway or ocean-going vessel, and with the shortest possible initial and final journeys by road. Operational Research has focused mostly on transport problems of uni-modal transport modes. We argue that intermodal freight transportation research is emerging as a new transportation research application field, that it still is in a pre-paradigmatic phase, and that it needs a different type of models than those applicated to uni-modal transport. In this paper a review is given of the operational research models that are currently used in this emerging field and the modelling problems, which need to be addressed.

Introduction

Intermodal freight transport has developed into a significant sector of the transport industry in its own right. This development has been followed by an increase in intermodal freight transportation research. Intermodal freight transport is the term used to describe the movement of goods in one and the same loading unit or vehicle which uses successive, various modes of transport (road, rail, water) without any handling of the goods themselves during transfers between modes (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1993). In this paper we focus on inland intermodal freight transport, rail–truck and barge–truck transport. Comparable research involving ocean shipping is not taken into account in this paper.

Fig. 1 provides a simple depiction of road–rail intermodal freight transport. A shipment that needs to be transported from a shipper to a receiver is first transported by truck to a terminal. There it is transhipped from truck to it’s second mode, in this instance a train. The train takes care of the terminal to terminal transport. At the other end of the transport chain the shipment is transhipped from train to truck and delivered by truck to the receiver. The trucking part of the transport chain is called drayage, pre- and end-haulage or pick-up and delivery. Instead of rail transport between the terminals transport by barge also is possible. The transport between two terminals is called the long haul. For a comprehensive description of intermodal freight transport see Muller (1999).

Intermodal freight transport is only just starting to be researched seriously. Since 1990 a substantial number of analytical publications specifically addressing intermodal transport issues have appeared (see Bontekoning et al., in press). Various intermodal freight transport decision problems demand models to help in the application of operation research techniques. However, the use of OR in intermodal transport research is still limited. The intermodal transport system is more complex to model than the mono-modal one and thus more difficult to research. This gives very interesting and challenging tasks for the OR practitioners.

Our contribution attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the use of operations research (OR) in intermodal freight research and to elaborate a research agenda for the application and development of OR techniques in intermodal freight transport research. Essentially, we want to answer the following questions:

  • What makes the problems in intermodal freight transport research interesting for OR scientists?

  • Which OR techniques have been applied, and for which problems?

  • Have these techniques been applied appropriately? Are there alternative approaches to the same problem?

  • To what extent do the specific problems of intermodal transport contribute to the overall development of OR techniques?


Section 2 describes our review procedure and the set-up of a classification of OR techniques applied in intermodal transport. In the subsequent sections (from 3 to 6) this classification is followed. For each actor in the intermodal transport system a general problem description is given, followed by the review of problems investigated and OR techniques applied in intermodal research.

Section snippets

Approach

We have performed a scientific literature review. We chose a computerised search, due to it’s speed and efficiency. However, we must note that electronic sources such as databases have limited coverage. Their earliest date is 1988. Nevertheless, this relatively short period of coverage is not really a significant bias in our review, as we presume that the majority of the intermodal literature has been published in the last ten years. We used a number of channels when choosing our studies, in

General problem statement

Drayage operations involve the provision of an empty trailer or container to the shipper and the subsequent transportation of a full trailer or container to the terminal. The empty container may be picked up either at the terminal, at an empty depot or at a receiver. Delivery operations involve the distribution of a full container or trailer from the terminal to a receiver, followed by the collection of the empty container/trailer and its transportation to the terminal, an empty depot, or a

General problem statement

Transhipment is inherent to intermodal transport. As Fig. 1 shows, load units are transhipped at least twice between truck and train or barge; once at a beginning terminal and once at an end terminal. This type of transhipment is called road–rail or road–barge exchange. A road–rail or road–barge terminal consists of:

  • a road gate, where trucks enter and leave the terminal,

  • a rail or barge gate, where trains or barges enter and leave the terminal,

  • a storage area for longer term storage of load units

General problem statement

The network operator faces decision problems concerning infrastructure planning (strategic level), service schedules and pricing of services (tactical level) and daily operations of the services (operational level). The majority of the studies related to intermodal infrastructure decisions deal with the interconnectivity of modes in order to achieve intermodal transport chains and the location of intermodal terminals. In order to achieve decision support models for these kinds of problems the

General problem statement

Intermodal operators organise the transportation of shipments on behalf of shippers. Intermodal operators buy the services offered by drayage, terminal and network operators. Decisions made by intermodal operators deal with route and service choices in existing intermodal networks. This type of decision, by its nature, is an operational one, because it concerns the assignment of shipments to routes and carriers. Intermodal routing is rather more complex than the routing problems of road

Conclusions

Intermodal transport research is an emerging research field. It is still in a pre-paradigmatic phase, but is evolving and will soon be regarded as a legitimate branch of scientific research. For several reasons modelling intermodal freight transport is more complex than modelling uni-modal systems. Firstly, it involves at least two modes which have their own specific characteristics with respect to infrastructure and transport units. Secondly, the control of the system has to be organised by a

Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous referees for their very useful suggestions.

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