ICT in multimodal transport and technological trends:
unleashing potential for the future
Irina Harris, Yingli Wang, Haiyang Wang
Logistics and Operations Management, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK
Abstract
The role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in freight transport as key
enabler is well recognised. However the uptake of recent ICT advances for multimodal freight
transport provisions in the UK and Europe has been slow. The aim of our paper is to explore
the potential reasons for such a slow adoption and assess how recent technological advances
such as cloud computing and Internet of Things might have changed the landscape and thus
help to overcome these barriers. Via an extensive review of 33 EU framework programme
projects, we are able to consolidate and present current major efforts in ICT developments in
the freight multimodal transport setting at European level. We further discuss barriers
inhibiting quick take-up of ICT applications in multimodal transport. Resolutions were then
explored by reviewing four key ICT development trends recently emerging and evaluating
their potential impact in reducing such barriers for deployment. Our contribution is two-fold:
it advances current knowledge by presenting an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging
ICT applications in the field of multimodal transport and barriers to e-enabled multimodal
transport. It also captures some of the best practices in industry and aims to provoke a debate
among practitioners and academics via the analysis of how innovative use of recent
technological developments could potentially lower the barriers to multimodal ICT adoption
and lead to a more integrated freight transport network. Therefore it lays the foundation for
further research.
Keywords: ICT, multimodal transport, barriers to ICT adoption, technological trends, cloud
computing, Internet of Things
1. Introduction
Growing environmental problems, increasing fuel price and congestion on many road
networks require new solutions to freight transport operations. An integrated multimodal
transport network is a critical factor for companies to successfully execute their supply chain
processes both domestically and internationally. However, the complex nature of multimodal
integration, for instance the involvement of a wide variety of operators can limit the growth of
multimodality. One of the major constraints is the lack of effective and efficient information
connectivity among and between various modes (water, air, road and rail).
Meanwhile, it is well recognised that information and communication technology (ICT)
functions like the nerve system of a multimodal transport chain and brings multiple benefits to
organisations by providing real-time visibility, efficient data exchange, and better flexibility
to react to unexpected changes during shipment (Durr and Giannopoulos 2003; Coronado et al.
2009; Gunasekaran and Lenny Koh 2009; Perego et al. 2011; Prajogo and Olhager 2012).
Recent developments in the field of ICT such as cloud computing, social networking and
wireless communication have further revolutionised the ways information is shared and
supply chains are structured.
2
In the UK, the Digital Economy Act was published in April 2010 which outlines the United
Kingdom Government's strategic vision for its digital economy. Recognising the
transformational impact of digital technologies on aspects of community life, future society,
and the economy, the Technology Strategy Board launched, in May 2011, an initiative aimed
at accelerating the formation of the ’Internet of Things’ ecosystem of applications and
services. As part of this initiative, the impact of Internet of Things for Transport has been
examined via expert workshops which one of the authors was invited to attend (May 2011).
Those expert workshops explored what challenges within the transport industry that could be
addressed through creative use of the Internet of Things and what needs to be done
nationwide to achieve this (Technology Strategy Board 2011). Subsequently priorities
identified include development of new user-centric methodologies, managing big data,
visualisation and augmented reality, service‐oriented architectures across future networks.
Despite the aforementioned benefits and strong government promotion, the uptake of recent
technological advances for multimodal transport provisions in the UK and Europe has been
slow (Huckridge et al. 2010, Perego et al. 2011, Marchet et al. 2012). The aim of this paper is
to explore the potential reasons for such a slow adoption and assess how recent technological
advances might have changed the landscape and thus help to overcome these barriers. The
contribution of this paper therefore is two-fold: it advances current knowledge by presenting
an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging ICT applications in the field of multimodal
transport and barriers to e-enabled multimodal transport. It also captures some of the best
practices in industry and aims to provoke a debate among practitioners and academics via the
analysis of how innovative use of recent technological developments could potentially lower
the barriers to multimodal ICT adoption and lead to a more integrated multimodal freight
transport network, and hence lays the foundation for further research.
Our paper is mainly conceptual but a wide source of secondary data has been utilised in order
to improve the validity of our analysis. An overview of the characteristics of multimodal
transport is presented in Section 2 followed by a discussion of the research methods deployed
in the paper in Section 3. The classification and discussion of recent ICT developments in
multimodal transport are presented in Section 4. Section 5 discusses the barriers to ICT
adoption in general, as well as for multimodal transport referring to both academic
publications and exemplar EU projects. Section 6 tackles how recent technological
developments could help reduce those barriers. Four types of merging technological trends are
identified and analysed, which represent key trends in ICT developments. As those
developments have only emerged recently and are still in their infancy stage, their potential
application to the management of multimodal transport has not been fully explored, either in
practice or by academics. We articulate our viewpoints under this section in a forwardlooking
fashion to invite further debate or validation from both practitioners and academia. In
Section 7 we subsequently evaluate the impact of technological trends on barriers related to
the ICT adoption and finally, Section 8 concludes the paper and provides recommendations
for future research.
2. Multimodal Transport
Multimodal transport refers to the transportation of goods by two or more different modes of
transport (such as road, rail, air or inland waterway, and short- or deep-sea shipping) as part of
the contract where often a multimodal transport operator (MTO) is responsible for the
performance of the entire haulage contract from shipping to destination (UN 1980). The
movement of goods could be within one country or international with additional procedures
such as goods clearance at customs. Figure 1 illustrates the whole international transport
3
process where goods are moved from a country A to final destination in country B and the
involvement of MTO during their journey. Its aim is to transfer goods in a continuous flow
through the entire transport chain to make a transportation journey more efficient from a
financial, environmental and time perspective (Beresford et al. 2006; SteadieSeifi et al. 2014).
With the massive growth in containerisation and the great shift in thinking from a
conventional unimodal to a system concept multimodal transport approach, multimodal is
currently the main method used in the international transportation process as it enables the
optimisation and organisation of all transport modes into an integrated continuous system in
order to achieve operationally efficient and cost-effective delivery of goods in the supply
chain.
Multimodal transport is often used interchangeably with terms such as intermodal, co-modal
and synchromodal transport. But there are subtle differences between those terms; multimodal
is considered as a type of transportation which uses at least two different modes of transport;
intermodal can be seen as a particular type of multimodal transportation that uses the same
loading unit (e.g. a TEU container), co-modal adds the efficient use of different modes
(resource utilisation) and synchromodal emphasises the real-time aspect of the transport
(SteadieSeifi et al. 2014; UN/ECE 2001). In our paper we use the term multimodal in a broad
sense, however other terms are also used occasionally in the context when we refer to specific
works in the literature or to highlight the differences discussed above.
Figure 1. Goods flow in a typical international multimodal transport chain
(Source: Chao 2011).
A combination of different features of each transport mode could place additional constraints
on goods during transportation such as packaging, transportation conditions and storage. On
the other hand, multimodal combines the specific advantages of each mode in one voyage,
such as the flexibility of road haulage, the relatively large capacity of railways and the lower
costs of short/deep-sea transport in the best possible way (Zaheer 2008). Moreover, in
comparison with road transport, which plays a relatively dominant role in the traditional
freight transport industry in the UK, several alternative modes of transport, such as rail, inland
waterway and short sea shipping, are widely recognised as being less harmful to the
environment with regard to CO2 emissions (Eng-Larsson and Kohn 2012; Woodburn and
Whiteing 2012). Therefore, due to the advantage of multimodal transport as well as the
increasing pressures to act on climate change through the reduction of carbon
ICT in multimodal transport and technological trends:
unleashing potential for the future
Irina Harris, Yingli Wang, Haiyang Wang
Logistics and Operations Management, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK
Abstract
The role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in freight transport as key
enabler is well recognised. However the uptake of recent ICT advances for multimodal freight
transport provisions in the UK and Europe has been slow. The aim of our paper is to explore
the potential reasons for such a slow adoption and assess how recent technological advances
such as cloud computing and Internet of Things might have changed the landscape and thus
help to overcome these barriers. Via an extensive review of 33 EU framework programme
projects, we are able to consolidate and present current major efforts in ICT developments in
the freight multimodal transport setting at European level. We further discuss barriers
inhibiting quick take-up of ICT applications in multimodal transport. Resolutions were then
explored by reviewing four key ICT development trends recently emerging and evaluating
their potential impact in reducing such barriers for deployment. Our contribution is two-fold:
it advances current knowledge by presenting an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging
ICT applications in the field of multimodal transport and barriers to e-enabled multimodal
transport. It also captures some of the best practices in industry and aims to provoke a debate
among practitioners and academics via the analysis of how innovative use of recent
technological developments could potentially lower the barriers to multimodal ICT adoption
and lead to a more integrated freight transport network. Therefore it lays the foundation for
further research.
Keywords: ICT, multimodal transport, barriers to ICT adoption, technological trends, cloud
computing, Internet of Things
1. Introduction
Growing environmental problems, increasing fuel price and congestion on many road
networks require new solutions to freight transport operations. An integrated multimodal
transport network is a critical factor for companies to successfully execute their supply chain
processes both domestically and internationally. However, the complex nature of multimodal
integration, for instance the involvement of a wide variety of operators can limit the growth of
multimodality. One of the major constraints is the lack of effective and efficient information
connectivity among and between various modes (water, air, road and rail).
Meanwhile, it is well recognised that information and communication technology (ICT)
functions like the nerve system of a multimodal transport chain and brings multiple benefits to
organisations by providing real-time visibility, efficient data exchange, and better flexibility
to react to unexpected changes during shipment (Durr and Giannopoulos 2003; Coronado et al.
2009; Gunasekaran and Lenny Koh 2009; Perego et al. 2011; Prajogo and Olhager 2012).
Recent developments in the field of ICT such as cloud computing, social networking and
wireless communication have further revolutionised the ways information is shared and
supply chains are structured.
2
In the UK, the Digital Economy Act was published in April 2010 which outlines the United
Kingdom Government's strategic vision for its digital economy. Recognising the
transformational impact of digital technologies on aspects of community life, future society,
and the economy, the Technology Strategy Board launched, in May 2011, an initiative aimed
at accelerating the formation of the ’Internet of Things’ ecosystem of applications and
services. As part of this initiative, the impact of Internet of Things for Transport has been
examined via expert workshops which one of the authors was invited to attend (May 2011).
Those expert workshops explored what challenges within the transport industry that could be
addressed through creative use of the Internet of Things and what needs to be done
nationwide to achieve this (Technology Strategy Board 2011). Subsequently priorities
identified include development of new user-centric methodologies, managing big data,
visualisation and augmented reality, service‐oriented architectures across future networks.
Despite the aforementioned benefits and strong government promotion, the uptake of recent
technological advances for multimodal transport provisions in the UK and Europe has been
slow (Huckridge et al. 2010, Perego et al. 2011, Marchet et al. 2012). The aim of this paper is
to explore the potential reasons for such a slow adoption and assess how recent technological
advances might have changed the landscape and thus help to overcome these barriers. The
contribution of this paper therefore is two-fold: it advances current knowledge by presenting
an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging ICT applications in the field of multimodal
transport and barriers to e-enabled multimodal transport. It also captures some of the best
practices in industry and aims to provoke a debate among practitioners and academics via the
analysis of how innovative use of recent technological developments could potentially lower
the barriers to multimodal ICT adoption and lead to a more integrated multimodal freight
transport network, and hence lays the foundation for further research.
Our paper is mainly conceptual but a wide source of secondary data has been utilised in order
to improve the validity of our analysis. An overview of the characteristics of multimodal
transport is presented in Section 2 followed by a discussion of the research methods deployed
in the paper in Section 3. The classification and discussion of recent ICT developments in
multimodal transport are presented in Section 4. Section 5 discusses the barriers to ICT
adoption in general, as well as for multimodal transport referring to both academic
publications and exemplar EU projects. Section 6 tackles how recent technological
developments could help reduce those barriers. Four types of merging technological trends are
identified and analysed, which represent key trends in ICT developments. As those
developments have only emerged recently and are still in their infancy stage, their potential
application to the management of multimodal transport has not been fully explored, either in
practice or by academics. We articulate our viewpoints under this section in a forwardlooking
fashion to invite further debate or validation from both practitioners and academia. In
Section 7 we subsequently evaluate the impact of technological trends on barriers related to
the ICT adoption and finally, Section 8 concludes the paper and provides recommendations
for future research.
2. Multimodal Transport
Multimodal transport refers to the transportation of goods by two or more different modes of
transport (such as road, rail, air or inland waterway, and short- or deep-sea shipping) as part of
the contract where often a multimodal transport operator (MTO) is responsible for the
performance of the entire haulage contract from shipping to destination (UN 1980). The
movement of goods could be within one country or international with additional procedures
such as goods clearance at customs. Figure 1 illustrates the whole international transport
3
process where goods are moved from a country A to final destination in country B and the
involvement of MTO during their journey. Its aim is to transfer goods in a continuous flow
through the entire transport chain to make a transportation journey more efficient from a
financial, environmental and time perspective (Beresford et al. 2006; SteadieSeifi et al. 2014).
With the massive growth in containerisation and the great shift in thinking from a
conventional unimodal to a system concept multimodal transport approach, multimodal is
currently the main method used in the international transportation process as it enables the
optimisation and organisation of all transport modes into an integrated continuous system in
order to achieve operationally efficient and cost-effective delivery of goods in the supply
chain.
Multimodal transport is often used interchangeably with terms such as intermodal, co-modal
and synchromodal transport. But there are subtle differences between those terms; multimodal
is considered as a type of transportation which uses at least two different modes of transport;
intermodal can be seen as a particular type of multimodal transportation that uses the same
loading unit (e.g. a TEU container), co-modal adds the efficient use of different modes
(resource utilisation) and synchromodal emphasises the real-time aspect of the transport
(SteadieSeifi et al. 2014; UN/ECE 2001). In our paper we use the term multimodal in a broad
sense, however other terms are also used occasionally in the context when we refer to specific
works in the literature or to highlight the differences discussed above.
Figure 1. Goods flow in a typical international multimodal transport chain
(Source: Chao 2011).
A combination of different features of each transport mode could place additional constraints
on goods during transportation such as packaging, transportation conditions and storage. On
the other hand, multimodal combines the specific advantages of each mode in one voyage,
such as the flexibility of road haulage, the relatively large capacity of railways and the lower
costs of short/deep-sea transport in the best possible way (Zaheer 2008). Moreover, in
comparison with road transport, which plays a relatively dominant role in the traditional
freight transport industry in the UK, several alternative modes of transport, such as rail, inland
waterway and short sea shipping, are widely recognised as being less harmful to the
environment with regard to CO2 emissions (Eng-Larsson and Kohn 2012; Woodburn and
Whiteing 2012). Therefore, due to the advantage of multimodal transport as well as the
increasing pressures to act on climate change through the reduction of carbon
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