Optimising intermodal transport The history, geography and infrastructure of Europe make it a prime candidate for intermodal transport solutions. A novel decision support software package, developed by an Italian research institute, will help exploit the advantages of intermodal transport. Industrial Technologies © EyeWire Images Intermodal transport is defined as transport using at least two modes of transport in a single transport chain. The possible modes of transport include road, rail, sea and air. The main benefit of intermodal transport is reduced delivery time while constraining the total cost of transport. Europe is a prime candidate for intermodal transport given its well developed railway system, shipping routes and road network. It is often nearly as fast and far less expensive to use road, rail and/or sea as opposed to air. The catch is that intermodal transport has greater requirements in terms of coordination among the different entities within the transport chain. Yet this is a window of opportunity for application of the latest information management and processing techniques. An Italian research institute designed a one-of-a-kind Decision Support System (DSS) for intermodal transport. The DSS can be applied to any route throughout Europe, incorporating any combination of the four modes of transport. It has been successfully validated for three different high-traffic European transport corridors, including Accession States. The innovation lies in the assimilation of transport strategy into the DSS. Differences in policy between the many nations that comprise Europe have a profound impact on intermodal transport delivery times and costs and therefore cannot be ignored. Hence, in addition to optimised routing and choice of transport mode, the DSS also provides recommendations for changes to national and international transport policy. This represents a significant step forward in comparison with the predecessors to the DSS. The analytical output of the DSS can be exploited by any number of players in the intermodal transport value chain. These include shippers, railways, ferry lines, airlines, the trucking industry, ports as well as European transport authorities and many other organisations. These end-users are currently being targeted by a dissemination campaign to encourage use of this new tool.
