Inland intermodal freight transport modelling

The demand for goods has grown in the past decades, in such a way that today freight transport has become essential for the support of modern economies. The search for a competitive freight transport system, able to cope with the growing freight flows, has lead in the last decades to large investments in intermodal transport options, mainly in Europe and North America. Intermodal freight transport is the movement of goods done with the same loading unit (or vehicle) by successive modes of transport, without handling the goods themselves when changing the modes.

This paper focus on inland intermodal freight transport, in particular, on the rail?truck transport of cargo containers in Belgium. The work aims to discuss the strategic decision of locating the rail-truck intermodal terminals in Belgium, in which freight can change between modes, while tacking into account the containerized cargo flows between the seaports of Belgium (Antwerp, Zeebruge, Ghent, and Ostend), the main generation centres in Belgium, and the generation centres at the border regions of neighbouring countries. The competitiveness of rail-truck networks in comparison of truck-only is discussed, in particular, for a relative small country as Belgium.