Rail-road planning systems in the context of synchromodal transportation

Abstract

Intermodality, as well as the more recent concept of synchromodality, provides a promising opportunity for shifting to more environmental friendly transport modes. One key aspect of synchromodality concerns real-time switching, such that most assignment decisions are proactive and more responsive to internal and external perturbations compared to a more classical approach. This leads to more complex operational decision processes requiring more flexibility. Therefore, existing planning and transport management systems should be adapted accordingly. In rail-road intermodal transportation, one important aspect concerns the development of planning systems or mechanisms designed to provide insights into current available capacity in order to address the occurrence of uncertain events and dynamically replan current transport operations. In this paper, the prerequisites of an efficient synchromodal transport management system are examined in order to facilitate efficient planning processes and make the system more flexible. Furthermore, we focus on the arrival flow of customer demand into the transport management system and propose a heuristic algorithm for the train load planning problem in order to provide planners with a fast and efficient train load plan.