Medium Distance Intermodal Rail Transport

摘要

The dissertation describes the results of the TERMINALS study, a study on mediumdistance intermodal road and rail transport, and focuses on two research objectives. The first research objective is to determine the interrelationship between transshipment terminal locations, number of terminals, shuttle train length, and system performance. It was taken into account that in principle all road transport over distances further than 100 km is suitable to be shifted towards intermodal rail transport, on the condition that transport quality and costs are comparable to, or better than, the quality and costs of road haulage. The second research objective is to determine which future technical logistic innovations in road, rail and inland shipping transport will probably take place, in what way the innovations of the inland shipping and road modes in the Netherlands hamper a strong growth on intermodal rail transport, and how the rail mode can face these innovations by the introduction of new technical and logistic developments in intermodel rail transport.