Inducing a new paradigm shift: A different take on synchromodal transport modelling

Abstract

To achieve socio-economic and environmental sustainability, utilization of existing capacities and assets has become a key challenge for the transportation sector. New concepts such as the Physical Internet and synchromodality offer an alternative to the current “business as usual” setting of freight transport services. In this paper, we thus start by conceptualizing the Physical Internet (PI) and synchromodal transport where we examine the state-of-the-art models together with their designs and methodologies proposed in the scientific literature. This is to assess and explore possible correlations between these two concepts to understand how they can reinforce each other. The assessment results in a more unified vision of the freight transport research. The focus of our second objective is on synchromodality, where we translate the PI methodological approaches into a new conceptual framework for synchromodal transport modelling. Given the analytical nature of all synchromodal transport models, the authors intend to induce a paradigm shift; a different way of thinking about the modelling philosophy related to synchromodality. The underlying elements of our approach are multi-agent technology and GIS.