Deliverables Computer controlled freight platforms for a time-tabled rail transport system: PLATFORM The project has implemented a simulation environment for the assessment of impacts produced by the adoption of different technologies and management policies to enhance freight intermodal terminal performances. The PLATFORM approach addressed rail-road terminals for a transfer of intermodal transport units based on a computerised control and management system. A smooth organisation for pre-haulage and end-haulage, as well as the completely computerised management of terminal services, has been demonstrated through computer simulation of the transport flow (modelling input and output streams of both rail and road) and the terminal services. The system for the management of integrated transport has been developed and tested in a selected demo terminal on a corridor available to Consortium members. The CEMAT terminal of Verona, Quadrante Europa, has been used as the test site. Three different scenarios of development have been simulated: present situation, adoption of computer-aided management and adoption of new transhipment technologies. The simulation of the present situation has been used for calibration purposes and to determine a term of comparison for the other scenarios; the results have been compared with the ones obtained by CEMAT during the surveys carried out within the IQ project. The adjacency of the simulation results to the measured data validated the simulator. The second scenario has been simulated applying the adoption of computer-aided management of road traffic. The adoption of new transhipment technologies has been reproduced by increasing the performances of the terminal transhipment equipment. It has been demonstrated that the adoption of faster transhipment devices without the support of computer-aided management does not produce significant changes in the performances of the terminal. On the other side the adoption of computer-aided management systems is cost-effective for every actor in the chain. The CBAs and MCA highlighted a high convenience for these actors in adopting computer-aided management. The only foreseen limitation to the effectiveness of such a policy, albeit not negligible, is the necessity of a coral adoption of the necessary devices and systems. Searching for OpenAIRE data... There was an error trying to search data from OpenAIRE No results available
