Abstract
The article presents a valuable concept seeking to solve the problem of demand uncertainty in intermodal transport. Regular traffic is quite important for moving containers, trailers and swap bodies. To keep regularity with uncertain demand means to have backlogs or empty space. Both of them are inefficient from an economical point of view. In practice, a day‐by‐day demand forecast is meaningful only for the next two or three days. This poses serious allotment management problems to freight forwarders and shippers since long‐term contract allotments need to be planned many months ahead. The article presents a stochastic dynamic programming model for a short‐term allotment planning a model that would be very valuable for implementing intermodal solutions. The presented model evaluates optimal cost policy based on the economic trade‐off between the cost of backlogged shipment and the cost of acquiring additional allotment.
Highlights
The relevance of this article is based on the allotment of railcars forecasting in the transportation of intermodal transport units
Containers on flat cars (COFC) are the main and growing market segment for intermodal train operators in the U.S Intermodal trains in the U.S successfully compete with trucks on the main routes with an average speed of 26.6 km per hour (640 km per day) for the containers on flat car (COFC) concept and 46.6 km per hour (1120 km per day) for the trailers on flat car concept In both cases, they mostly provide daily and regular service
The allotment model indicates that freight forwarders could acquire free allotment in a shuttle train on a long-term contract basis
Summary
The relevance of this article is based on the allotment of railcars forecasting in the transportation of intermodal transport units. The distance of transportation, frequency, delivery time and prices are the main competitive factors in this niche It is exactly the market, shared by European truck services because railways did not understand how they should go about playing their role in the international chain. The allotment model indicates that freight forwarders could acquire free allotment in a shuttle train on a long-term contract basis Such contract points out that capacity is planned to the exact amount on each specific dated departure. The demand forecast becomes more accurate and freight forwarders may decide on buying additional allotment for containers This additional allotment frequently could be booked indicating a higher price than the normal long-term based charge.
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