Carbon Emission Tax Policy in an Intermodal Transportation Network

摘要

In this paper, we empirically studied and proposed a carbon emission tax policy based on a real world coal transportation intermodal network across 15 states in the US including highway, railway and inland waterway. Theoretical analysis on boundary models motivates the potential improvement on environment while not increasing transportation cost. We develop multi-objective optimization models to analyze intermodal transportation with economic, time performance and environmental considerations. The computational study validates the environment improvement and provides authorities a potential carbon emission tax policy and a change in the system-wide transportation cost. The breakeven point for tax rate is 13 dollars per ton, which can provide minimum carbon emission without increasing the transportation cost.