An advanced integrated Assessment Methodology of Multimodal Transport Impacts: Elaboration and Application to European Cases

The reasons for choosing or promoting a certain way of transporting goods are dependent on amultitude of factors. Shippers will be interested in reliable logistics and low cost, whileauthorities are in general more concerned with relieving congestion and minimizing theenvironmental impact of transport in general.Historically, transport analysts have mainly focused on either economic or environmentalaspects, but have hardly ever joined the two. This thesis aims to achieve an integratedapproach to the assessment of transport, in this case focused on intermodal chains at a microlevel. This means we focus on the performance of the entire intermodal logistic chain – as awhole – and not on the performance of each transport mode.During the three last years, we have participated in the European funded 6th frameworkproject CREATING, where we have been the leader of the work package in charge of theassessment activities.To achieve this task, we developed an integrated assessment framework that can translatequantitative and qualitative values into a single performance indicator.This model is implemented in usable software, quite easily understandable by the users.The impacts considered in the integrated assessment framework are related to variousperformance areas: the economy, the environment, the logistics and the safety.The logistics and the safety are directly taken in charge by the software while the economyand the environment require the use of an underlying model developed by colleagues fromDelft University, working in close relation with the model developed within this thesis:LODA stating for Logistic Optimization and Decision Aiding. The ‘Delft’ model providesoutputs related to the costs and the environmental impacts of transport chains based ontechnical aspects of transport means. These outputs are directly imported in LODA to performthe integrated evaluation.A list of indicators is elaborated for each performance domain. After a first aggregation step,the model provides four global indexes presenting the performance of transport projectsrelated to the four above-mentioned fields. These four aggregations are realized by means of amulticriteria decision aiding method named PROMETHEE stating for Preference RankingOrganization Method for Enrichment and Evaluation and other aggregation methods such as asum and an average.Then, a final indicator provides the global performance of transport projects by aggregatingthe indexes into one global score by using the PROMETHEE method. This single indicatormakes possible to rank the scenarios on the basis of the aggregated performances.In addition, it is possible to test the robustness of the ranking on the basis of different weights.The assessment framework developed in this thesis is demonstrated by means of cases underevaluation in the CREATING project.The first case covers the transport of cargo from Germany to South-Eastern Europe by roadand by intermodal scenarios featuring RORO (stating for Roll-on / Roll-off) waterbornetransport along the Danube. This case highlights the major benefits of an intermodal transportcompared to an ‘all-road’ transport regarding the pollution, the reduction of accidents as wellas the positive impacts on the costs and the logistics.iiiThe second case revolves around the transport of biomass on a lake in the Paijanne area inFinland. The woodchips are used as an important source of energy by a local power plantwhich plans to increase its activity in the coming years. The increase demand of biomass willgenerate a lot of traffic which can not be absorbed by the only road transport. So, regardingthe lake system, the waterborne transport alternative could be an efficient solution to ensurethe sustainable development of biomass transport in that area.The third case is dedicated to the study of conditioned banana transport (temperaturecontrolled and kept under an atmosphere with reduced amounts of oxygen). The bananasarrive in Antwerp, from South America, by seagoing reefer ships and have to be transportedto ripening houses in Strasbourg. This transport is currently realized by truck. The impacts ofintermodal transport alternatives are studied and show that intermodal transport can performbetter than an ‘all-road’ transport.Finally, the integrated assessment framework is applied to the transport of chemicals over theinland waterways in the Netherlands. This transport is currently done by single hulled shipswhich need to be replaced by double hulled ships in the near future while the transport byroad could take a slight shortcut. Once again, the model demonstrates the competitiveness ofinland navigation.The above-mentioned cases highlight the possible application of our model in real conditionswhile possible further developments can be identified regarding the internalization of externaltransport impacts. On the basis of the case studies, it appears that intermodal transportrepresents a pertinent alternative to ‘all-road’ transport allowing a better ‘modal balancing’.