A significant research effort has been dedicated to external
barriers over recent years. The following research projects have
analysed the barriers and proposed solutions to overcome them. It
should be noted, in particular, that the HERMES project of the EU
has recently assessed the main barriers, both institutional and
physical to the production of efficient intermodal transport
services. Table 2 summarises the main findings of this project.
2. Raileroad
Dr J. Fabian Meier, Institut für Transportlogistik, TU Dortmund
2.1. Road transport
Road transport is by far the most popular mode of transport.
There are several reasons for this:
Flexibility: One can reach almost any point by truck;
Compatibility: A truck from one country can use the roads in
any other country;
Speed: Goods on medium or short distances normally cannot be
transported faster by any other mean;
Cost: Saving the fixed costs for maintaining a track and transhipment
points allows cheap transport for short distances.
Of course, the speed and cost aspect is one that has to be
continually re-evaluated as fuel gets more expensive and the
amount of traffic is rising far more than the number of roads.
Figs. 3 and 4 only illustrate the situation for Germany, but this
can be generalised for the whole of central Europe.
With the financial crisis, it is even harder to maintain the road
network and often impossible to extend it.
2.2. Intermodal transport chain
What are the indications for good combination of rail and road?
Let us have a look at Fig. 5.
One can observe that coal is most successful in using rail. Also,
oil is successful but not as much as coal. What may the reasons for
this be? Consider that:
Coal and oil are heavy goods. Trains are able to transport huge
amounts of heavy goods;
Coal and oil are not particularly time sensitive. Firstly because
they do not lose quality over time and secondly they are relatively
cheap, binding not too much capital per kilogram;
The coal transport network has few sources and few sinks,
meaning, we have only a few places to mine coal and there are
(nowadays) few places to consume it. On the contrary, oil has
many recipients, e.g. all the people driving cars.
Looking at the other end of the scale we have:
Food: Considering the “Best before” date, food has to be
transported quickly. Furthermore, there are many places to
produce, processed and consume food.
Products with high value/kg: Flexibility and time are the most
important factors.
In order to make rail more attractive, a few adjustments must be
made. The time factor must be reduced as rail in its current state is
slow; the main contributing factor to this is the relatively large
amount of time that is used for waiting or shunting.
The second point is the cost factor. Fig. 6 illustrates the general
cost structure of combined transport.
20 V. R