Abstract

For several years, the promotion of intermodal transport has been a priority for the Spanish and European authorities (Cuerda et al., 2003; Conseil National des Transports [CNT], 2005) but the importance and the recent growth of rail transport in Spain is extremely small compared to road transport. This is more so in the case of small and medium-size companies shipping general (non-bulk) cargo, which almost exclusively use the road (Ministerio de Fomento, 2004). The establishment of a network of intermodal freight transport centres connected to the main railway lines and close to the main cities is viewed as an opportunity for the modal shift, and also the establishment of relevant intermodal corridors dedicated to specific freight purposes (ore, agricultural products), to be defined at a European level, should improve the overall figures. But nevertheless, there is the feeling in Spain that more attention should be given to general traffic issues, facing the needs of the great amount of small companies moving small amounts of freight, but with an enormous aggregate effect. Thus the strategic objectives of our work lie within the rationalization of mobility and the improvement of intermodal accessibility. They concentrate on establishing the basis for a higher participation of small and medium-size companies in intermodal transport by analyzing the specific experiences of an individual transport company, based in the city of Seville, seeking an enhancement of the modal shift within its logistic operations. This work is organized as follows: In section 2 we describe the role of intermodal transport in the supply chain. In Section 3 we list the actors involved in all phases of intermodal transport to then show the decision-making model for each one of these actors. In Section 4 we apply this model to the case of a transport company based in the South of Spain, describing all the shipment and cost data. Finally, in section 6 we explain our conclusions drawn from the decision making model in general and in particular for the case-study company, and analyze the effect of additional factors (other than cost) in the decision-making process with respect to intermodal transport. Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Abstract

Freight transport is a crucial sector for the development of the economy and society, but it also produces negative impacts on the environment and the human health that must be considered. Intermodal freight transport represents an opportunity to achieve a transport of goods with enhanced environmental and competitive characteristics. Hence, intermodal freight transport consists in the transport of goods by at least two modes of transport, in the same loading unit (e.g. container), without handling the goods themselves when changing modes in an intermodal terminal. Intermodal freight transport leads to the shifting of road freight transport in long distances to others modes of transport with improved environmental performance such as rail freight transport and inland waterways transport. This thesis is concerned with a study of the environmental impacts of rail freight intermodality using a life cycle approach. The purpose of this research is to analyse the environmental impacts of the different inland freight transport modes in Belgium (focusing on rail freight transport), and their use in intermodal freight transport routes in Belgium and Europe. In this framework, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology constitutes an effective tool to assess the environmental impact of the inland freight transport modes. The system perspective of the LCA methodology implies the need to analyse not only the direct processes related to the transport activity such as energy consumption and exhaust emissions, but also the processes connected with the electricity and fuel production, vehicles (e.g. locomotives and wagons, barges and lorries) and infrastructure (e.g. railway, inland waterways and road). This thesis studies the inland freight transport in Belgium from the period 2006 to 2012. It has been carried out the LCA of rail freight transport (distinguishing between electric and diesel traction), inland waterways transport and road freight transport independently. A comparison between the environmental impacts of these inland freight transport modes has been performed as well. Within rail freight transport, the environmental impacts of electric trains using the electricity supply mix of different European countries have been compared. Moreover, a detailed study of the life cycle phases of construction, maintenance and disposal of railway infrastructure has been conducted. Furthermore, the influence of load factor and emission engine technology in the environmental performance of road transport have been studied. In addition, a study of the environmental impacts of consolidated intermodal freight transport routes in Belgium and Europe have been carried out. The aim of this analysis is the comparison of the environmental impacts of these intermodal routes depending on the transport mode chosen for the major part of the intermodal route. Finally, this thesis studies the environmental impact of the modal splits of inland freight transport in Belgium for several scenarios such as the increase of rail freight transport as a result of the possible development of the intermodal rail freight transport or the optimization of the operational costs. It has been analysed how the change of the modal split and the improvement of the technology used by the different transport modes affects the environmental impacts of inland freight transport in Belgium.

Abstract

What is a suitable modelling approach for socio-technical systems? The answer to this question is of great importance to decision makers in large scale interconnected network systems. The behaviour of these systems is determined by many actors, situated in a dynamic, multi-actor, multi-objective and multi-level jungle. Models to support such an actor should be able to capture both the physical and social reality of the system, their interactions with one another and the external dynamic environment. Moreover, they must allow users to experiment with changes in both the physical and the social network configuration. To deal with these challenges a generic agent-based modelling framework for socio-technical systems is developed in this thesis. The cornerstone of the framework is a shared language formalised in an ontology, which forms the interface needed to bring different elements of the system (both social and physical) together, to interconnect different models and ensure interoperability. The re-usability of building blocks helps modellers build new models more efficiently. The models developed with the new framework are shown to offer valuable decision support in case studies of an oil refinery supply chain and an intermodal freight hub.

Abstract

The container transport is the key factor for globalized markets. Due to this the shipping volume in the past 20 years grew by the factor of 5. Based on this, container terminals are very important transshipment facilities in global transport chains with a high amount of annual throughput and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The transport sector is responsible for a large proportion of GHG emissions. An increase of traffic and GHG emissions for any transport mode is estimated. However, emissions are caused by transport modes and transshipment facilities and have to be reduced for both. State of the Art methods of determining transportation caused emissions consider only transportation modes. Emissions in transshipment facilities were currently rarely applied. However, for calculating emissions along the entire transport chain, the emissions from transshipment facilities have to be taken into account. Furthermore the reduction of greenhouse gases is significant for both the terminal itself and for the entire transport chain. Derived from existing standards for calculation of GHG emission a calculation tool for container terminals has been developed. Based on the energy consumption of the handling equipment and storage facilities the tool calculates the overall emissions in terminals. Furthermore, these emissions are allocated to loading units by using overall handling data and handling factors. The developed tool can be adapted to any multimodal container terminal. The calculated results of the tool include total emissions and the allocation of emissions on loading units.

Abstract

TU Dortmund University developed a simulation suite for the Container Terminal Dortmund GmbH seated in the largest inland port in Europe located in Dortmund. This suite focuses on modelling processes, resources and strategies for container terminals and enables to optimize a terminal with simulation. The aim is to optimize the terminal by determining the best mix of operating strategies for crane control, stacking area, handling area and resource management. To achieve this, the current situation of the terminal and different future scenarios for operating the terminal were modelled with the simulation suite.

Abstract

n important problem in the assessment of reliability benefits of transport projects is that link level improvements must be translated to network level, so that they can be economically valued based on users’ trips from origins to destinations. For intermodal transport, shipments follow a chain with more than one mode. Generally, this requires aggregation of travel time distributions that are not additive. We propose an approach that estimates the change in transport time reliability of an intermodal transport chain based on the changes for links of that chain. We demonstrate the framework of reliability assessment for a case study of network improvement for rail-truck intermodal transport in China. Also, we demonstrate the application in a cost-benefit analysis context with user valuations of transport reliabilities from the case at hand. The application leads to the result that projects for the renovation and expansion of the transshipment terminal perform better compared with project that improve rail haulage speed. Another finding is that the effect of reliability improvement projects can be super-additive at network level. In comparison with traditional methods, we conclude that the proposed method can better estimate transport time reliability benefits when the distribution of link travel times is highly skewed. Also, it opens new possibilities for further research for measuring correlated reliability measures within networks and for performing network resilience analysis.