Current Issues of Multimodal and Intermodal Cargo Transportation

The aim of the article is to analyze the current state and development prospects of multimodal transportation, to examine its efficiency and advantages compared to traditional modes of transport, and to identify the main problems and ways to solve them in order to improve logistics efficiency and the integration of transportation systems. The overall aim of the study is to determine and substantiate efficient strategies for the development of multimodal passenger transportation in Ukraine to ensure safe, comfortable, and economically viable passenger transport. The article explores the current state and prospects for the development of multimodal passenger transportation in Ukraine. The article considers the principles of integrating different types of transport into a unified system capable of ensuring continuous and efficient passenger movement. Special attention is given to the regulatory and legal support for the functioning of transportation infrastructure, modern logistical approaches to route formation, and the use of digital technologies for planning «door-to-door» transportation. The role of multimodal transportation in increasing the convenience, speed, and safety of passenger flows is assessed. The authors examine the impact of the ongoing war on Ukraine’s transport system during 2022–2024, including evacuation operations, the delivery of humanitarian aid, and the resilience of infrastructure during crises. The analysis covers the destruction of transport facilities and the challenges of their restoration, as well as ways to integrate the Ukrainian transport network into the European TEN-T system. It is demonstrated that the efficient operation of multimodal transportation in crisis conditions requires a comprehensive approach, infrastructure modernization, the implementation of digital solutions, and international cooperation. Based on the analysis, key factors for the successful development of multimodal transportation have been identified, including systemic planning, route optimization, improving logistics efficiency, ensuring passenger safety, and the resilience of the transport system. The study provides practical recommendations for implementing modern technologies and improving the management of multimodal routes, which helps enhance the competitiveness of the Ukrainian transport sector internationally and ensures its capacity to respond to crisis challenges. The practical significance lies in the applicability of the proposed strategies and recommendations for improving the integration of different modes of transport, boosting safety, comfort, and the accessibility of passenger transportation. Overall, this research makes an important contribution to the study of multimodal passenger transport in Ukraine, offering scientifically grounded recommendations for optimizing transport flows, increasing transport efficiency, and enhancing the quality of passenger services.

PurposeUsing intermodal transportation is vital for the delivery of relief supplies when single mode alternative becomes unusable or infeasible. The objective of this paper is to investigate the use of intermodal freight transportation in humanitarian logistics.MethodsThis paper first identifies the differences between multimodal and intermodal transportation. Then, we examine the use of each transportation mode for specific disaster types and phases. When combinations of transportation modes (i.e. air, road, rail and sea) for intermodal transportation are considered together with different disaster types (e.g. earthquake, flood and famine), the feasible decision space becomes rather large. To explore this decision space, we have reviewed the academic and practitioner studies as well as several non-governmental organizations (NGO)’ disaster archives.ResultsFrom this exploration, we developed a transportation mode/disaster-type combination matrix and a transportation mode/disaster-phase combination matrix. We then discuss examples of real life usage of intermodal transportation in humanitarian logistics and share our findings and analyses. Of 369 academic humanitarian logistics articles, only 20 have mentioned transportation mode changes. In practitioner studies, we found a decreasing percentage of the usage of slower modes (e.g. sea and rail) in the disaster response phase over time. We were not able to find a significant relationship between a specific transportation mode and a specific disaster-type or -phase. Road transportation seems to cover most of the disaster operations regardless of the disaster-type or -phase.ConclusionsWe can conclude that intermodality and the transportation unit concept is not being studied extensively in humanitarian logistics. Most of the relief organizations do not share transported freight amounts in their reports and those that do share transported freight amounts in their reports do not explicitly mention mode changes. We discuss the enablers of and obstacles to the effective use of intermodal transportation in humanitarian logistics and propose future research directions. We anticipate that intermodal transportation in humanitarian logistics will garner greater research attention and increased utilization in coming years.

Advantages of specific modes of transport can be best take by employing various technologies of combined transport. In the up-to-date logistic schemes based on the “just-in-time” and “just-in-sequence” concepts, it is most appropriate to use railway service and inland water connection as the most environmentally friendly and effective modes designed and built for medium- and long-distance freight transportation. The development strategy of the Russian Federation’s inland water transport for the period until 2030 is aimed at providing conditions under which to improve the sustainability of domestic transport system with due regard to shifting the balance between transport modes by switching some portion of cargo traffic from overland modes of transport to inland water transport. The article considers the essence of multimodal and intermodal transportation. It is note that multimodal transportation is most favorable for the environment. The main goods supplied through intermodal transport are list. The technology of intermodal transport using water compounds in the Russian Federation and Europe is considered. The role of the state in the development of intermodal transport is investigate.

Introduction. The paper is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the legal regulation of international mixed (multimodal) transportation of goods, passengers and luggage in a special period. In the conditions of war, the country's transport and logistics system plays the role of ensuring Ukraine's humanitarian, food, and energy security. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the problematic aspects of the legal regulation of international mixed (multimodal) transportation of goods, passengers and luggage, and to determine directions for improving the legislation in this area in the modern conditions of the development of transport corridors. Results. The author pays attention to the expansion of international multimodal transport corridors TEN-T on the territory of Ukraine and their influence on the intensification of international mixed transportation. It has been established that a successfully integrated transport system involves not only the combination and interaction of all participants in mixed transportation, but also the creation of a single legal and informational field, coordination of technical and operational characteristics of vehicles, infrastructure facilities, coordination and optimization of work schedules of various types of transport and all it is within different legal systems. Conclusions. The author concludes that due to the fact that international mixed transportation has become the only possible option for the delivery of cargo, passengers and luggage both from Ukraine to the countries of other continents and to Ukraine, the issue of unification of international legal regulation of multimodal transportation and the introduction of digital transport corridors is becoming urgent more and more acute.

Summary. The article highlights the topical issue of development of container multimodal transport, which are a priority in the development of transport services, their use will increase the volume of cargo delivered to the destination by the most efficient modes of transport (their combination). Container transportation of goods significantly reduces the cost of delivery of goods from producers to consumers. Container transportation has become the most economical without transhipment technology, and, above all, in the intercontinental multimodal land-sea service. The aim of the work is to study the practical aspects, substantiate practical recommendations for the logistics of multimodal container transportation of goods in global supply chains. Conduct at comparative analysis of the implementation of multimodal container traffic in different containers, namely 20 and 40 feet. The analysis and calculations of the data of container transportation processes for the conditions of two international transport corridors: TRACECA and trans-Caspian international transport route are carried out. The cost of transportation by sea, although their number is small relative to the total share of routes, significantly affects the total cost of transportation. In order to stimulate freight traffic on these routes, member states have set discounts of up to 10% of the cost of the ferry fare. Studies suggest that the use of multimodal container traffic is currently economically feasible. The conducted research of practical aspects and substantiation of practical recommendations on logistics of multimodal container transportation of goods in global supply chains suggests that the use of container transportation is a way of delivery today using multimodal options for delivery of goods. An in-depth comparative analysis of the implementation of multimodal container traffic in different containers, namely 20 and 40 feet, allows us to conclude that the use of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TMTM) with a 20-foot container is a more economically attractive option and can be recommended.

Multimodal transport can integrate the advantages of various types of transportation, improve the efficiency and quality of transportation, meet the requirements of personalized demand for commodity transportation. It is an inevitable trend for production enterprises to cope with the increasingly fierce global competition. Starting from the “The Belt And Road” strategy and the current situation of China’s multimodal transport, this paper analyzes the development of China’s multimodal transport under the “The Belt And Road” strategy. The development of international multimodal transport is analyzed. The countermeasure under“The Belt And Road” is put forward.

Nowadays, multimodal transport is developing rapidly, but the individual ports in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) have been operating separately. In this paper, the development status of multimodal transport in Guangzhou port will be used as an example to discuss the development trend of GBA ports. The study found that the multimodal transport model of the Port of Guangzhou has taken shape. However, there are still many shortcomings with old facilities, difficulties in sharing data, and a lack of unified management, which are common to all ports in the GBA. This paper aims to provide ideas for the direction of port development in GBA, hoping to enhance intermodal transport to connect the ports, improve the efficiency of freight transport and promote the formation of a unified dispatch centre for GBA ports. As a result, it is hoped that the GBA Port Management Committee will be built to achieve more efficient management.

Freight transport and logistics play a key role in economic and social terms by ensuring competitiveness, economic growth and employment. Intermodal transport has received increased žattention due to problems of road congestion, environmental concerns and traffic’ safety. Strategic importance of speed, reliability and flexibility in the supply chain is forcing companies to re-examine traditional logistics services. As a result, interest in addressing the problem of intermodal transport and logistics is growing. In order to improve efficiency and sustainability of freight transport in Europe, the European Commission has launched a series of initiatives and projects, and has defined the basic directions of development of intermodal transport and logistics. The paper presents the recommendations and measures for the further development of intermodal transport and logistics in Serbia.

This article provides a comparative analysis of the concepts of a transport and logistics center and a multimodal transport and logistics center. An assessment is given of the development of the railway transport infrastructure in connection with trade and economic cooperation with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. An analysis of development stages methodology based on the dynamic programming method of transport infrastructure objects is carried out and the possibility of applying this technique to projects of multimodal transport and logistics centers is revealed. Introduced the term “transport microsystem”, which is used to consider the objects complex interacting with the transport and logistics center. The existing development stages methodologies, studied by Russian scientists, are analyzed. Based on the compared methods, the authors of the article proposed two approaches to the application of the dynamic programming method in the construction and development projects of multimodal transport and logistics centers. In the first approach, these objects are considered separately from each other, but taking into account their mutual influence. In the second approach, the elements of this system are studied in a complex, as part of one enlarged transport object. For clarity of the analysis of approaches, “time-state” diagrams were constructed, their functional features are described. The advantages and disadvantages of these approaches are identified, the conclusion is drawn on the possibility of their application in complex projects of construction and development of multimodal transport and logistics centers.

The China-EU freight train is a physical link connecting the Eurasian continent in the new era and a new bridge for expanding China-EU economic and trade cooperation. Since its opening in 2011, China-EU freight trains have developed rapidly. Since 2015, it has been normalized and fixed, and now it has entered a stage of steady growth. Based on the trade gravity model, this paper calculates the trade gravity coefficients between China and the rest of the world in 2015 and 2019, and then establishes the analysis and construction of China-EU freight trains and cross-border transport models. The combined optimization of intercontinental transport scheme and regional transport scheme is constructed, which is composed of tractor, semi-trailer and intercontinental railway intermodal transport. The transport network of this model consists of two types of nodes: multimodal transport station and highway transport station. Based on the double difference regression analysis of gravity coefficient, it is concluded that the central attractiveness of trade between China and the rest of the world is relatively low in the past, but under the overall downward trend of trade attractiveness between China and the rest of the world, the China-EU train has significantly promoted the growth of trade in recent years, which is attractive.

The exponential growth of the flow of goods and passengers, fragility of certain products and the need for the optimization of transport costs impose on carriers to use more and more multimodal transport. In addition, the need for intermodal transport policy has been strongly driven by environmental concerns and to benefit from the combination of different modes of transport to cope with the increased economic competition. This research is mainly concerned with the Intermodal Terminal Location Problem introduced recently in scientific literature which consists to determine a set of potential sites to open and how to route requests to a set of customers through the network while minimizing the total cost of transportation. We begin by presenting a description of the problem. Then, we present a mathematical formulation of the problem and discuss the sense of its constraints. The objective function to minimize is the sum of road costs and railroad combined transportation costs. As the Intermodal Terminal Location Problemproblem is NP-hard, we propose an efficient real coded genetic algorithm for solving the problem. Our solutions are compared to CPLEX and also to the heuristics reported in the literature. Numerical results show that our approach outperforms the other approaches.

The aim of this paper is to provide information on the general characterization of multimodal transport, intermodal and combined transport. There is also mentioned the distribution of basic transport processes and types of transhipment. Finally, this paper describes the practical examples of multimodal transport.

With international trade developing, international logistics is attached to more and more importance. Advanced way of international cargo transport gradually becomes to perfection, and multimodal transport especially predominates. But international cargo transport means high risk, uncertain requirements, information not be really shared, general insufficient or short collaboration among enterprises for lack of trust each other etc., and these factors restrict the development of multimodal transport. So this paper compares operation mode of multimodal transport with that of virtual enterprise, points out the feasibility that resolve multimodal transport problems by constructing virtual enterprise. Meanwhile, the paper indicates the problems existing in constructing virtual enterprise based multimodal transport and puts forward solutions. Toward this promotes the sound progress of international multimodal transport and the rationalization of international logistics.

A single mode of transportation can not satisfy the agile manufacturing, rapid response from the customer demand, logistics supply chain management, and many other aspects with the rapid development of economy. Multimodal combined transport provide the corresponding solutions. Multimodal combined transport helps to save transportation costs or to save transportation time. And multimodal combined transport has a great significance to improve the transportation service level ,to strengthen competition ability, to improve social comprehensive benefit. This article give an example from Liuzhou to Guangzhou. This article make a detailed scheme of Multimodal combined transport. In this paper, integrated transport path optimization model of multimodal combined transport of is set up with linear programming method. And integrated transport path optimization model is solved.Key words:Multimodal combined transport,Path optimization, Linear programming method

This article discusses the problems and outlines a conceptual approach to the development of remote regions of Russia with large reserves of natural resources and complex geographical and climatic conditions that ensure the country's economic growth, through ensuring the transport accessibility of these regions and the growth of industry in them. The work made a conceptual justification of the need to develop cooperation of all types of transport using multimodal and intermodal transportation. Attention is drawn to the need to integrate land and water modes of transport, as well as the formation of a special combined transport scheme that combines latitudinal and meridional trunk transport directions.