Intermodal transport: does a wider definition improve its competitiveness?

With the opening of borders and always greater decentralization of production, freight transport increased a lot in the last decades. Road remains the most used mode in Europe (Eurostat, 2016). Even if it is appreciated for its responsiveness, flexibility, and quickness, road transport is however responsible for negative impacts on its environment like air pollution or climate change. Intermodal freight transport i.e. the transportation of goods using two or more modes of transport, in the same loading unit, without handling of the goods themselves (United Nations, 2001) is identified by the European Commission (2011) as an interesting solution for limiting the negative impacts of transport.
In the classical conception of intermodal transport, pre- and post-haulage travels are supposed to be short, and to be performed by road transport, whereas the long-haul travel is done using rail or IWW. The combination of these modes allows reducing the negative externalities of the whole travel, i.e. the negative impacts that are generated by transport operators, but which are not directly supported by them. These externalities in particular consist in air pollution and climate change, provoked by the release of emissions which lead to air pollution and human health problems.
The objective of this study is to determine the impact on intermodal attractiveness of allowing other combinations of modes than the classical road-rail/IWW-road combination, during an intermodal travel. The research is based on tools of the operations research domain and proposes the development of an allocation model for freight transport at the strategic level of decision. The goal is to determine the flow distribution of goods between direct transportation by road, rail or inland waterways, and any combination of these modes using intermodal transport. The novelty consists in taking into account three modes of transport in a mixed integer programming model, and to allow the transfer from any mode to any other at intermodal terminals where these modes coexist.