How to locate intermodal terminals for achieving economic and environmental competitiveness?

Europe has a strong commitment to the development of competitive and sustainable transportation. An intermediate objective cited in the “White Paper” is to shift 30% of 300 km and above road freight transportation to more environmentally-friendly modes of transport such as rail and water by 2030. Improving and expanding the intermodal network is one way to achieve this goal. However, intermodal transport requires intermodal terminals where the transfer from one mode to another can occur. The location of those terminals is of strategic importance for the competitiveness of intermodal transport. The objective of this paper is therefore to develop a network design model which allows the optimal location of intermodal terminals to be determined, subject to both economic and environmental efficiency. Three possible combinations are considered: (i) Road-only, (ii) Intermodal transport using road (drayage) and rail (long-haul) and (iii) Intermodal transport using road (drayage) and inland waterways (long-haul). External costs are also included in the analysis, i.e. costs that are generated by an economic agent but supported by other agents of the society. This strategy is in line with the willingness of Europe to internalize external costs. The developed model can be used to test how modal split is influenced by the undertaken policies, such as internalizing external costs in the transportation costs. Tests are carried out on the case study of Belgium.