Intermodal Transport Research Articles

Covid-19 and Public Transport: two years later. Investigating the transport demand trend in the City of Brescia

Public Transport (PT) extremely suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic. While trying to guarantee the service supply as regularly as possible, great efforts have been made by Transport Companies to deal with constantly changing emergency prescriptions. Moreover, overall uncertainty led to a sharp shift in travel behaviors and habits, resulting in a general increase in private (especially motorized) modes. Over the past months, a lot of research has tried to investigate the several perspectives for the PT sector, during and beyond the Covid-19, by accounting for e.g., new technologies, innovative service supply or transport modes, etc. which have been implemented overtime. However, after two-years from the Covid-19 outbreak, the transport demand is still not back to the pre-pandemic situation. Considering the trends of the past two-years, this paper aims at exploring how the transport demand has varied, with respect to the Covid-19 impact, the safety prescriptions, and the PT service supply, to shed light over still unobserved factors that may be useful to move forward. By considering the area of Brescia as a case study, the analysis compares the transport demand from the different urban PT systems (i.e., buses, metro light rail and bike sharing) of Brescia with the related service supply (i.e., kms-travelled, service availability, etc.), the Covid-19 infections, the service limitations (i.e., lockdowns, vehicle capacity reductions, etc.), to understand whether relationships exist among the several variables included. It emerged that the progressive easing of restrictions, the enhancements of intermodal transport system and the improvement of service's quality could have contributed to recovery transport demand. Future developments of the research could be addressed to extend the available database to confirm or improve the research findings.

Preliminary Concept of Operations for Total Traffic Management

The EU project X-TEAM D2D focuses on future seamless door-to-door mobility, considering the experiences from Air Traffic Management and the currently available and possible future transport modalities in overall multimodal traffic until 2050. This paper deals with developing a Concept of Operations of an intermodal transport system with special consideration of the passengers' satisfaction with up to 4-hour journeys. For this purpose, the influences of quality management systems and other organizational facilities on the quality of passenger travel in the transport system were examined. In the study, integration of various management systems, like resources, traffic information, energy, fleet emergency calls, security and infrastructure, and applications such as weather information platforms and tracking systems, is expected.

Improving the design of rolling stock of railways to provide intermodal transportation of grain

Improving the design of rolling stock of railways to provide intermodal transportation of grain

Digitalization of freight rail transportation as a factor in improving their efficiency

The economy is currently undergoing significant changes and fluctuations, requiring the transport industry to adapt and improve its services in a timely manner. The most relevant now is the issue of digitalization of transport services, which entails both an increase in the speed of transportation and a gradual departure from a large amount of paper workflow. These changes are taking place, in particular, in the field of railway transport, the role of which in the strategic development of the eastern range is the most important, demonstrating an increase in traffic volumes, minimization of delays in transit, as well as stability and regularity of shipments. The purpose of this article is to substantiate the feasibility of digitalizing the process of transporting goods by rail through the introduction of a specialized digital platform. The authors put forward and prove the assumption that the use of such a platform can reduce the loss of time at all stages of cargo transportation, reduce the costs associated with the transportation process, and also provide more flexible access to infrastructure. It also confirms the increase in the efficiency of interaction between all participants in the transportation process: from the carrier company to the supervisory authorities. The article proposes a regulation for processing documentation using electronic document management, which includes the use of mobile workstations; the importance of the spread of digital services to the process of intermodal transportation of goods and, as a result, the increase in the reliability of such transportation is argued. The results obtained are of an applied nature, since they propose and justify a number of measures aimed at enhancing the electronic interaction of participants in the process of cargo transportation.

Physical Internet towards sustainable supply chain: The significance of digital interoperability

The purpose of this study is to discover physical internet attributes for satisfying economic, social, and environmental benefits, and frame the hierarchical interrelationships of these attributes. The fuzzy Delphi method is used to define necessary criteria; fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory is adopted to identify the cause-and-effect relationships based on the experts’ viewpoints. Finding - The result also presents the most important criteria having causal effects on others including privacy preservation approaches, system of logistics network interconnectivity, distributed data storage, real-time locating system, and distributed multi-segment intermodal transport, from which recommend practical implications for the decision-making process. This study suggests both theoretical and managerial implications for improving the physical internet towards sustainable supply chain as physical internet has been perceived as a novel logistics model towards sustainability and a key solution for the current paradigms to overcome sustainable issues. This study contributes to the literature by pointing out the causal aspects for physical internet implementation, which are digital interoperability of supply chain, and shared warehouse and transportation networks.

Structural design and selected aspects of numerical simulations of a prototype container-platform for intermodal transport

The object of the research is a cheap, easy to build basic module with dimensions corresponding to typical railway containers. Such structures can be used to support the intermodal rail-road transport of wooden and metal logs. The basic structure and one assembled from two or more platforms with various longitudinal dimensions ensures high mobility resulting from the modular structure and the possibility of selecting transport configurations as well as the use of various forms of loading - unloading, including: typical crane operations, the use of forklifts or hook winches. The use of a platform-container will eliminate the need to repeat the operation of individual loading or unloading of each unit of the transported load e.g. a single block of wood, a bundle of bars, as a metal log, a single pipe, during each reloading operation - from the place of logging, production, storage, etc. The paper presents selected problems of the preliminary design and numerical strength tests of a single base module of the platform in a prototype version with dimensional equivalent of a 10'-foot railway container.

Intermodal rail transport in selected European countries

Paper presents analysis of intermodal rail transport in selected loading units. The brief description of the loading units is presented. The volume of intermodal rail transport of load units in European countries in 2021 is shown, taking into account mass of transported goods, transport performance and average transport distance. Goods in the intermodal transport are carried out in container, swap bodies, semi-trailers and road sets. The most frequently used loading unit is the container. Semi-trailers is the most often used loading unit in road freight transport. However, semitrailers are rarely used in intermodal transport in most European countries. In the case of Poland, the share of intermodal transport of containers and swap bodies by rail constitutes a significant share in the European market, however, the transport of semi-trailers and road sets is still a rather unpopular form of transport compared to other European countries.

RESEARCH OF PROCESSING INTERMODAL TRANSPORT UNITS AT THE TERMINAL IN THE "SINGLE WINDOW" CONCEPT

The paper examines operations that take place at the sea container terminal in the context of a unified system of information exchange between participants in intermodal cargo transportation. The study aims to formalize the cargo handling process at the sea container terminal through the temporal logic apparatus, which allows for the distribution of the processes necessary for the cargo lots forwarding formalities at the seaport terminal, according to causal relationships in time. The urgency of the work is explained by the rapid development of containerization and the growing demand for transportation in intermodal transport units from the side of cargo owners. The feasibility of implementing "single window" systems for intermodal transportation is confirmed by the complexity of such transportation systems: the presence of several types of transportation, the requirement of a high degree of integration of transportation participants, and strict time constraints. The practical significance of the presented formalization provides an idea of the cargo handling algorithm, contributes to the qualitative formulation of the task of designing software solutions for information exchange at container terminals that shorten the cargo handling process by simplifying the document flow.

Environmental and Qualitative Monitoring of a Transoceanic Intermodal Transport of Melons

To supply the off-season melon market, Europe imports from distant markets in other countries, mainly Brazil. Cold transportation takes at least 15–20 days, thus increasing the risk of quality losses. Moreover, product deliveries, especially in international markets, can result in supply chain inefficiencies that negatively affect carbon footprint and expected freshness. Implementing quality sensors and advanced cold chain management could help to reduce these problems. The objective of this work was to monitor a real transoceanic intermodal transport of melons (Brazil to Spain), through the implementation of multi-distributed environmental sensors (15 ibuttons loggers) to evaluate the remaining shelf-life (RSHL) of melons at destination. The sensors’ location within the cargo reached a maximum variability range of 4 °C. Using digital sensors to track temperature variations, it was verified that in different locations in the container, the melon RSHL at the end of the journey, was nine days and 19 h in colder spots, while in the hottest spot, the RSHL was reduced to five days and 22 h. This fact has substantial implications for improved tracking of temperature to maintain fruit quality for market, potentially reducing waste, and contributing to higher profit margins for international food supply chains.

Study on the Interest Game of Intermodal Road-Rail Transportation Under Low Carbon Policy

Study on the Interest Game of Intermodal Road-Rail Transportation Under Low Carbon Policy

Growth trap of public freight villages in Europe

Freight Villages (FV) are important nodes in supply chains and can be seen as industrial and trade zones with good connections to transport networks, such as road, rail and air, offering basic logistics services, such as warehousing and transshipment, as well as further complimentary services especially for transport-intensive companies, such as logistics service providers. As such, FVs are promoters of intermodal transport. They are successfully introduced and run throughout the world and are well accepted by companies. Therefore, FVs can be found in almost every country. Accordingly, many papers were published on how best to set up those centers but less is known about their growth and the challenges they face here. Our research shows that there is an interesting counter-intuitive effect in growth and expansion of FVs. We conducted empirical analyses and developed a System Dynamics model to reveal a so-called “growth trap”. Public and public-private FVs interested in the expansion of their terminal infrastructure will attract private competitors offering warehouse capacities in the near vicinity which will impede the growth of the FV. This effect is also validated by means of a case study. To avoid such development, we propose policy recommendations for a proper and healthy growth of such FVs.

Railcar reallocation optimization on water-rail network under uncertain busyness

Water-rail intermodal transportation can reduce cargo losses and transportation transferring costs. However, the imbalance between the capacity of the scheduled railway network and the large container freight demand greatly reduces operational efficiency. To minimize the total transportation cost and relocation cost, a railcar reallocation stochastic optimization model is formulated to deal with uncertain congestion in the railway network. To capture the uncertain busyness and queuing pattern, a hypercube spatial queue model is embedded in the optimization model by estimating the expected queue length and waiting time. To solve the proposed nonlinear nonconcave stochastic model, an approximate hypercube based iterative algorithm is proposed. A real-world case study is presented to show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method. The proposed model outperforms the comparable deterministic model in the objective value. Sensitivity analyses on the ratio of the unit waiting cost and the unit travel cost for empty cars, and the total number of freight cars show the robustness of the proposed method.

Risk Perceptions Using Urban and Advanced Air Mobility (UAM/AAM) by Applying a Mixed Method Approach

From a mobility rationale, advanced air mobility (AAM) and/or urban air mobility (UAM) claims a reduction in travel time with integration into intermodal transportation networks and a reduction in ground traffic congestion due to the current modal shift to air, ultimately contributing to more sustainable transportation. Starting in 2025, South Korea is planning to operate air taxis between International Airport and Seoul downtown. This study applied a mixed-method approach to identify barriers to the use of air taxis by investigating consumers’ risk perception of air taxis. A focus group interview yielded a scale with 18 items across five dimensions. Next, through exploratory factor analysis, the 18 items were reduced to 10 items across two dimensions: safety risk (6 items) and cyber risk (4 items). The findings of this study will offer practical guidelines for creating marketing tools and designing strategic management planning for air taxis. The risk perception using air taxis will assist with creating a more strategic and efficient business model that destination management organizations, developers, and policymakers can utilize.

Prospects for intermodal and container transportation for Georgia's integration into the global transport market

Prospects for intermodal and container transportation for Georgia's integration into the global transport market

Analysis of the Transfer Time and Influencing Factors of Air-Rail Integration Passengers: A Case Study of Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport

As China’s high-speed rail and civil aviation gradually move from a competitive relationship to a cooperative relationship, air-rail integration services (ARISs) have begun to be promoted, and an increasing number of passengers are choosing the combined travel mode of high-speed rail and aviation. As two long-distance transportation modes are involved, transfer time also affects transfer service satisfaction, and the factors affecting the transfer time of ARIS need to be further clarified. In this study, a stated preference (SP) survey on the transfer reservation time of ARIS passengers was conducted, the perception accuracy of the transfer reservation time was analyzed, and the influencing factors of the transfer reservation time in each link were analyzed by using a multivariate ordered logistic regression model. The results show that the average transfer time of air-rail combined transportation passengers is 102 to 128 min; more than half of passengers’ reservation time is reasonable; and passengers’ genders, educations, occupations, incomes, travel modes, costs, and distances have different degrees of impact on the transfer reservation time. This study holds a certain guiding significance for improving the service quality of air-rail intermodal transportation and improving transfer efficiency and provides a theoretical basis for personalized and customized services for air-rail intermodal passengers.

Technical, legal, and business conditionings of the functioning of rail operators in the freight transport market

In the article, the authors presented the technical, technological, legal, and business conditions of the functioning of rail freight transport in the international transport market. The authors analyzed the literature, considering this area's most important national and international normative documents. An essential element of the considerations is the presented schematic concepts of models for various forms of rail freight transport. The main ways of organizing freight transport at the eastern border were also indicated. The reasons for barriers that negatively affect the competitiveness of rail transport with other modes of transportation, especially in international transport, were shown. The rail transport market has undergone many changes recently, including investments in railway infrastructure, the growing importance of intermodal transport, and support for a more sustainable transport system. The article indicates the reasons for the occurrence of barriers that negatively affect the possibilities of further development of railways and the competitiveness of rail transport with other modes of transportation, especially in international transport.

Partial and complete replanning of an intermodal logistic system under disruptions

The exclusive and excessive use of long-distance road transportation is not suitable way to reduce the negative environmental impacts of logistics systems. Intermodal transport, combining road with other transport modes, has the potential to reduce both operating costs and carbon footprints. One of the reasons for the low share of intermodal transport is its requirement for the coordination of scheduled transport services that can result in reducing reliability in case of disruptions due to the arrival of new shipment orders, fluctuations in shipment quantities, delays, and service cancellations within the network. This calls for reliable and efficient algorithms to replan the shipments’ distribution. In this paper, the replanning problem is formulated as a path-based multi-commodity network flows. We provide two different network topologies, one of which is based on a time–space network, while the other embeds time aspect in a highly scalable alternative structure to large transportation networks. We propose a column generation method whose pricing sub-problems are presented as resource constrained shortest path problem solved via a tailored label-correcting algorithm. We look at the pros and cons of complete and partial replanning in case of disruption and provide managerial insights for intermodal networks. An extensive set of computational experiments is presented on realistic instances being generated with the consultation of our industrial partners for a logistic network including railways, waterways, and roads. The promising outcomes validate the efficiency of the proposed approach that can be easily adjusted to real-time intermodal logistic replanning.

Unravel the spatio-temporal patterns and their nonlinear relationship with correlates of dockless shared bikes near metro stations

ABSTRACT The dockless bike-sharing system has rapidly expanded worldwide and has been widely used as an intermodal transport to connect with public transportation. However, higher flexibility may cause an imbalance between supply and demand during daily operation, especially around the metro stations. A stable and efficient rebalancing model requires spatio-temporal usage patterns as fundamental inputs. Therefore, understanding the spatio-temporal patterns and correlates is important for optimizing and rescheduling bike-sharing systems. This study proposed a dynamic time warping distance-based two-dimensional clustering method to quantify spatio-temporal patterns of dockless shared bikes in Wuhan and further applied the multiclass explainable boosting machine to explore the main related factors of these patterns. The results found six patterns on weekdays and four patterns on weekends. Three patterns show the imbalance of arrival and departure flow in the morning and evening peak hours, while these phenomena become less intensive on weekends. Road density, living service facility density and residential density are the top influencing factors on both weekdays and weekends, which means that the comprehensive impact of built-up environment attraction, facility suitability and riding demand leads to the different usage patterns. The nonlinear influence universally exists, and the probability of a certain pattern varies in different value ranges of variables. When the densities of living facilities and roads are moderate and the relationship between job and housing is relatively balanced, it can effectively promote the balanced usage of dockless shared bikes while maintaining high riding flow. The spatio-temporal patterns can identify the associated problems such as imbalance or lack of users, which could be mitigated by corresponding solutions. The relative importance and nonlinear effects help planners prioritize strategies and identify effective ranges on different patterns to promote the usage and efficiency of the bike-sharing system.

The effect of traffic status on dockless bicycle-sharing: Evidence from Shanghai, China

Dockless bicycle sharing (DBS) has become a popular form of public transport worldwide over recent years, which contributes mightily to solving the increasingly frequent traffic congestion and parking issues in urban areas. However, its spatiotemporal usage patterns and determinants have not been fully investigated. In particular, the existing studies have not provided clear insight into the effect of traffic status on DBS trips. To address this shortcoming, this study proposes a model framework to understand DBS from multiple aspects. Within this framework, descriptive statistics and visualisation methods are employed to explore the spatiotemporal travel patterns of DBS in the downtown area of Shanghai. By adopting spatial panel models, the impacts of the built environment, weather, and traffic status on DBS in different regions are examined, and the heterogeneity analysis of traffic status factors is further conducted. The results have shown that DBS in Shanghai has obvious tidal distribution characteristics. The supply of DBS exceeds the demand in the peripheral areas of the city, while the opposite is true in the city centre. In addition, the traffic state index, bus stop density, residential and commercial land area have a positive contribution to DBS usage and have obvious positive spatial spillover effects. The results from the heterogeneity analysis have revealed that the influencing mechanism of DBS usage varies by location and riding duration. These findings of the present paper can provide an effective basis for DBS demand distribution forecasting, regional rebalancing, and connecting traffic planning, thereby facilitating the usage of DBS, promoting intermodal transport, and reducing carbon emissions.

Green Intermodal Transportation and Effluent Treatment Systems: Application of the Genetic Algorithm and Mixed Integer Linear Programming

Green Intermodal Transportation and Effluent Treatment Systems: Application of the Genetic Algorithm and Mixed Integer Linear Programming