Intermodal corridors for freight transport in Europe based on short sea shipping (Incoshipping)

Transcription

1 Intermodal corridors for freight transport in Europe based on short sea shipping (Incoshipping) Integrated project proposal Participants: 1. Göteborg University, Sweden 2. TRAIL/TU Delft, The Netherlands 3. Catholic University of Mons, Belgium 4. Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden Dep. of Naval Architecture (a) Dep. of Logistics and Transport (b) Dep. of Urban Transport and Land Use Planning (c) 5. TIS, Portugal 6. University of Las Palmas, Spain 7. CERIAS, Italy Co-ordinator: Arne Jensen Professor of Transport Economics Göteborg University Dept. of Business Administration Logistics and Transport Research Group SWEDEN Fax: April, of 66

2 Proposal summary Intermodal corridors for freight transport in Europe based on shortsea shipping Acronym: Strategic objectives adressed: Rebalancing and integrating different transportmodes by Freight transport corridors (3.3) Intermodal freight transport systems, technologies and strategies (3.4) Summary The objective of the this proposal is to develop a detailed realisable scenario of a competitive intermodal European door-to-door freight transport system based on short-sea/rail combined transport with a minimum of road haulage at the end points. Where realistic, the system will be designed for extended service to/from inland waterways by sea-going vessels. The geographical coverage of the system is at the present stage thought of as the coastline Scandinavia-Benelux-France-Spain-Portugal-Italy and hinterlands spanned by connected terminals around relevant ports of this coastline. This geographical area will be the focal area for empirical research in the project. And further, sea-based extensions from this system to the Eastern Baltic region, Greece, and to Northern Africa will be given some, but less intensive, considerations in conclusion. Short-sea as a concept is taken here to include distances such as from Scandinavia to Spain/Portugal. The proposed intermodal system will be designed in a way that maximises its ability to gain market shares from road transport in a competitive market and particularly from long haul door-to-door road-based transports. Efficient and effective system components will be developed and integrated into a few alternative designs for intermodal transport from door to door. Existing infrastructure will be taken as given. Some alternatives will build on existing technology and best practice regarding vehicles, vessels, and handling of load units. However, one alternative will put some effort in analysing whether more creative vessel design can improve the speed of load units from door to door by improving vessel speed, container transfer between vessel and port terminals/trains and some pre-sorting of load units during the sea voyage. This focus on creative vessel design is explained by our hypothesis that speed is of prime concern for an intermodal system that is designed for competition with direct road transport. 2 of 66

3 B.1 Scientific and technological objectives of the project and state of the art B.1.1 Objectives The objective of the proposed research project is to develop a detailed feasible scenario of a competitive intermodal European door-to-door freight transport system based on short-sea/rail combined transport with a minimum of road haulage at the end points. Where realistic, the system will be designed for extended service to/from inland waterways by sea-going vessels. The geographical extension of the system is at the present stage thought of as the coastline Scandinavia-Benelux-France-Spain-Portugal-Italy and hinterlands spanned by connected terminals around relevant ports of this coastline. This geographical area will be the focal area for empirical research in the proposed project. And further, sea-based extensions from this system to the Eastern Baltic region, Greece, and to Northern Africa will be given some, but less intensive, considerations in conclusion. Short-sea as a concept is taken here to include distances such as Scandinavia - Spain/Portugal. The proposed intermodal system will be designed in a way that maximises its ability to gain market shares from road transport in a competitive market and particularly from long haul door-to-door road-based transports. This implies that the "best" size of hinterlands will be one of the outcomes of the research project. "Detailed realisable scenario" is one key concept of the objective. By "detailed scenario" is meant a complete scientific description of the intermodal system in terms of system components, models, and important operational issues. This description will cover technical, economical, environmental, and managerial aspects. From a technical standpoint, the term "detailed scenario" implies that efficient and effective system components will be developed and integrated into an optimal or near optimal design for intermodal transport from door to door. The different components will not be specified in all technical details. However, each component must be realisable and based on known technology, whether in practical use at present or not. Development will only be driven to the stage where component performance, system performance, component interoperability, cost structures, transport quality performance, and environmental impact can be estimated or evaluated. The existing infrastructure will be regarded as given and taken as one of the starting points. Railway rolling stock and road vehicles will be taken as given with the exception of aspects concerning transfer of load units between means of transport, which may also influence aspects of terminal design. Some more creative designs of vessels adapted to the proposed system will be analysed in order to improve vessel speed and container handling speed. This choice is motivated by the mission of the proposed system: to gain market shares from direct road transport. Such gains will not be possible unless the intermodal system can offer throughput times for load units from door to door that are competitive to those of direct road transport.the objective of the proposed project is not to build and/or test physical prototypes of transport system components. The "realisable scenario" part of the objective calls for a thorough evaluation of the proposed intermodal transport system design and a treatment of implementation strategies. The evaluation objectives will cover the performance of the system in important dimensions such as business economic costs, socio-economic costs, transport quality, and environmental impact in absolute terms will be compared with road transport. In addition to these dimensions, the evaluation will also cover market share predictions of the system under 3 of 66

4 various conditions for the entire market and for market segments. One set of conditions will represent the prevailing transport policy conditions together with present external conditions. Other sets will represent changes likely to take place in European transport policy. The objectives related to implementation strategies lead us to suggest the analysis of problems of market entry of key actors, pricing problems, effects of cost internalisation, and system coordination, and to suggest strategies, which may contribute to reducing such problems. The geographical scope of the system is intra-european freight flows capable of being moved by the load units of the system. This, of course, includes inter-continental freight flows as long as they are moved in Europe and can be moved by the load units of the proposed system. B.1.2 State of the art This project deals with the development, evaluation, and implementation of an intermodal transport system based on short-sea shipping combined with railway transport and short end transport by lorry. The objective that will be guiding the design of the system (from door to door) is to gain market shares from direct road transport from door to door. We have not been able to find literature on studies having our holistic systems approach, focusing on shortsea/rail/road combination in an integrated transport chain perspective, and aiming at evaluation and implementation in several dimension in a scenario perspective. However, there are studies dealing with aspects of the problems that we are focusing on. These studies can give some background to this proposal. B Brief overview of published EU research within the scope of our proposal SPIN (Scanning the Potential of Intermodal Transport), D2 This project aims to develop a toolbox to scan the potential for modal shift in freight transport. A two-sided approach is taken: at a micro level, shippers decision making process is analysed and the main variables identified demand side analysis. At this level, the analysis focuses more on the specific supply chain to identify the modal shift potential for a given company. It is also at the micro level that the main barriers and opportunities to a shift to intermodal freight transport are identified. This particular deliverable intends to evaluate current methods for a micro level analysis. At a macro level, a more strategic approach is taken. It is a more classical approach in terms of the methodologies and tools used. It is a data hungry process aiming to identify potential for modal shift for regional, national and international freight flow. The deliverable also aims to list current methods and tools for these analyses. In summary, the main approaches for identifying the potential for modal shift can be represented in the following table: 4 of 66

5 Macro Micro Approach Key Factors (ex.) Methodologies / Tools Identification of Characteristics and e.g. Matrice potential for modal quality of transport analysis. Freight shift based on analysis networks (cost, transport models of aggregated freight time, reliability ). (incl. Modal flows at regional, Characteristics of split national and commodities approcahes) international levels Identification of potential for modal shift based on analysis of freight flows and transport chains at company level Real Life transport chains. Companies decision making process. Transport chain analysis. Scanning tools. Decision Support Systems Experiences Several experiences at EU: Switzerland, Germany, the Nederlands Limited number of projects and experiences available. LOGIQ The decision making process in intermodal transport (EU, FP4), Final Report. The main objective of the LOGIQ project has been to identify actors in the decision-making process and to provide information on underlining criteria and constraints in the use of intermodal transport. The three categories of variables identified as fundamental in affecting decision taken by actors were: a) the infrastructure networks; b) the cost and quality factors influencing the transport chains and actors behaviours; c) the institutional environment of transport and relevant legal issues. The result of this process was the construction of a Decision Support System (DSS) for policy makers in order to allow them to, through policy decisions, influence a target user group into greater use (by substitution) of intermodal freight transport. From the analysis necessary to the elaboration of the DSS, and given that the decision making processes by the actors in the transport systems are rather complex, some general conclusions were drawn: Considering the three actor types (forwarders/ road transport companies, shippers, shipping lines) in an integrated way, LOGIQ researches proved that, among the criteria examined: a) cost is the most important criterion in the decision-making process; b) reliability is the most important quality criterion; c) frequency of services offered and rail operating systems used are the most important criteria considered from the supply side, essentially for meeting the actors requirements in reliability. On a closer look, the LOGIQ project was able to identify and categorise 3 different profiles in terms of determinant variables in their decision making process: 5 of 66

6 Decision-making Process Profile Decision pattern components Cost-oriented Group Quality-oriented group Specific Group Key Factors - Cost - Cost - Regional-local - Reliability- contexts flexibility- safety in an integrated way - Additional logistics services - Frequencyoperating systems - Historical reasons Group size 35% of sample 45% of sample 20% of sample Intermodal transport usage: range of individual intermodal transport shares 50% - 100% Intensive users Significant market potential 10% - 50% Relatively important market potential 0% - 10% STEMM (WP7) Barriers and Policy Instruments for Improved Intermodality: freight side This specific work package of the STEMM project uses as input 61 interviews to representatives of forwarding and haulage companies, intermodal operators, railway and ferry operators, port authorities and experts. It aims to analyse the barriers that prevent a more frequent use of intermodal services and to derive the respective possible policy responses to tackle those problems. The geographical area covered by this study is composed of: UK, Scandinavia, and the Alpine countries France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. Another important feature of this study comes from the fact that the interviews are not limited to identifying current bottlenecks, but they approach the interviewees so as to assess their medium-term view (2010) on the evolution of intermodality for freight transport in the referred regions. Once again, there is nothing terribly new in this study. The identification of the main technical barriers to intermodality has been made for various regions across Europe. The interesting feature of this study comes from the fact that hardware problems (e.g. number of terminals, extension of the network), at least in the region under the scope of STEMM study, are not rated very high. In fact, the main barriers to a more frequent use of intermodal freight transport services, according to the interviews, come from other kinds of shortcomings: low temporal reliability 6 of 66

7 high prices of intermodal services insufficient customer-oriented information and communication low cargo speed, too long travel time low service quality (safety of goods, temporal flexibility, frequency of services) The proposed instruments to improve intermodality are well known and compatible with other studies on the subject: deregulation in the rail sector adjustment of pricing in transport, namely in terms of adjusting the pricing of road transport to the real costs it imposes on society as a whole (externalities) enforcing existing regulations for road transport such as driving times, weekend driving, speed and weight limits other instruments such as action on infrastructure, use of advanced information and communication systems and standardisation This could be used as input to assess the competitiveness of the system we are about to propose, and also as a background to implementation strategies. PROMOTIQ (Final Report 4 th FP) Promotion of a new Generation of Intermodal Transport Services and Operators. This study goes a little further than the previous ones given that it aims to identify possibilities for intermodal freight transport for rather short distances and small shipments (maybe there is no scale problem in freight intermodality after all ). The rationale behind the PROMOTIQ project is the following, for short distances: PROMOTIQ Consortium decided to investigate on this issue because according to the results of the IQ project, the largest potential of intermodal transport lies in the market for short distance transportation. However, intermodal transport has so far not achieved a considerable market penetration in that segment. This is caused both by operational and by technical constraints. For small shipments: The small shipment issue has been chosen by the PROMOTIQ Consortium since according to the field surveys carried out in IQ and LOGIQ, intermodal transport is mostly used for full loads. The necessary logistical structures for consolidated loads do not seem to be met by the most of the intermodal services supplied. However, future logistical trends will have the impact that shipment sizes will become smaller and that shipments have to be done more often in a smaller size. For this market segment intermodal transport has to adapt to the requirements of the transport of small shipments, if the market share should rise. Express transportation involves the whole transportation process, from consignor to consignee, in a manner as fast as is economically possible, on a predetermined delivery schedule and at predetermined prices. The carrier provides door-to-door carriage of the shipment and it implies that only one party (consignor or consignee) is liable for the whole transportation process. As far as speed of express transportation is concerned, in a European context, international express delivery would take from less than one day up to three days, depending on the price off the service, the distance involved and the access to the places of origin and destination. 7 of 66

8 This might be an interesting observation to consider in our study, insofar as to keeping an open mind when identifying aggregated freight flows in our analysis. B University research within the scope of our proposal Jensen (1990) in "Combined transport - systems, economics, and strategies" takes a holistic view on combined transport between road and rail and covers demand aspects, market and competition, system component evaluation, transport system development, computer based optimisation modelling, system evaluation, and implementation strategies. A number of performance measures covering costs, transport quality, and environmental impacts are estimated and compared between road and rail in a competitive market. It seems to be the first scientifically published study of its kind (first published in Swedish 1987). The study focuses on domestic combined transport between road and rail in Sweden. It does not consider shipping at all. However, it presents a general structural approach to strategic and policy oriented intermodal transport system research, and it presents methods for various steps in the research process. These two properties of the study are applicable to the research situation of our proposal. B.2 Relevance to the objectives of the Sustainable Surface Transport Policy The European road transport system is under enourmous pressure. The increase of passenger and goods transport on the roads has lead to negative external effects such as congestion, pollution, other physical impacts on the environment, and accidents causing damage to people and property. For the shippers it has lead to increasing transport costs and deteriorated transport quality. The indirect effects on consumers and the socio-economic costs of society are considerable. In many parts of Europe, the situation is intolerable and cannot be remedied by new road investments due to lack of financial resources and land, and building more roads would not solve the environmental problems associated with road traffic. Future prospects make this picture worse. Heavy road vehicle traffic is predicted to increase by 50% by 2010 (White Paper, 2001) and passenger car traffic will also increase. Long and medium distance international road haulage in Europe is one of the contributors to the problems of the road transport systems. However, long and medium distance road haulage can be substituted by intermodal transport between many regions in Europe. This could reduce the pressure on major trunk roads and sensitive areas. The rationale for the research action proposed here is to reduce pressure on road traffic by developing a new competitive intermodal alternative involving sea transport combined with rail or barge inland transport along the coasts of Europe. Road transport in this alternative will only be necessary in connection with short haul distribution and collection traffic around end terminals. The gain will be more sustainable freight transport systems with a competitive cost-quality ratio for shippers and lower environmental impact and energy consumption. In addition, the proposed system may help revitalising some coastal areas. Sustainable surface transport policy involves environmental, economic, and social sustainability. The proposed intermodal system is directly relevant to transport policy 8 of 66

9 objectives representing the first two kinds of sustainability and in more indirect way also to the third. These policy objectives are presented in various ways in e. g. The White Paper and elsewhere, sometimes as objectives, sometimes as policy measures, instruments or the like. Our proposed research is relevant to the following objectives of the sustainable transport policy of the EU: It will reduce congestion and delays for both the freight flows using the proposed system and also for the remaining flows on the roads. The gain will be reduced transit time for goods and reduced operating costs for carriers. The total cost decrease of these effects will be considerable The shift of mode going from direct road transport to combined vessel/train/road transport involves a shift to modes with reduced environmental impact (pollution and physical damage) This shift of mode from direct road transport to combined vessel/train/barge transport will reduce unit costs of transport from door to door, particularly by utilising the scale advantages of the proposed system It will increase the utilisation of existing infrastructure and reduce the need of investments in new infrastructure to take care of the expected increase in road transport between member states It adds one modal alternative to the freight market and thus gives shippers more options. It increases competitive pressure in the entire freight market. This may stimulate efficiency and structural change The proposed system will give positive contributions to the competitiveness and expansion of peripheral regions of the Union. There is an increasing anxiety in Scandinavian industry about the congestion problems particularly in Northern Germany and also about increasing infrastructure costs in these regions, which are necessary passages for freight flows to Central and Southern Europe. The intermodal system of this project proposes an alternative circumventing transport corridor that will reduce the congestion problems on this link and increase competitive pressure on existing transport supply at the same time. This proposal will also have the same effect on freight flows between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe via the Pyrenees, where traffic capacity is limited It will contribute to the revitalisation of the railways It will promote intermodality It will promote "motorways of the sea" It will contribute to the elimination of traffic bottlenecks and release some of the pressure on some trunk roads that are under pressure today It will suggest solutions that can be adopted easily by members of the enlarged union and associated members It will contribute to a more balanced expansion of the regions of the EU It will contribute to closer relations of member states B.3 Potential impact of the proposed project B.3.1 Impact on transport policy and transport companies Increasing freight-flows and increasing market shares for road haulage have for some time now, together with insufficient economic and environmental resources for expanding road 9 of 66

10 capacity and road traffic, made intermodal transport a prioritised solution among politicians and transport policy planners. However, there is a fundamental need of knowledge about the design, economics, quality, environmental impact, and organisation of intermodal transport as part of transport policy. This is particularly true of new suggestions on intermodal solutions involving sea transport as a link in intra-continental transport chains together with rail and possibly transport by barge. The research proposed here is designed with very clear intentions on results that canhave an impact on decision-makers at various levels. The type of knowledge that may help national or regional politicians, authorities, and transport planners range from very general fundamental issues to relatively concrete and detailed knowledge of a strategic character. This knowledge may be formulated as answers to questions such as these: What intermodal transports will be able to exist on commercial grounds or with a specified degree of regulation? What is the economically optimal market share for the proposed transport system, and what is the environmentally optimal market share? What effects in terms of costs, environmental impact, and quality would arrise if the market share of the proposed transport system would be x%? What investments and policy instruments would be necessary for governments? On a company level, strategic questions such as these may be important: What freight-flows are of interest for the proposed intermodal transport system, with what design of system, and with what volumes? What prices, transport quality levels, and environmental effects will we be able to compete with if we decide to enter this market? What investments will be needed? What partners are of interest to co-operate with and what economic risks do different parties assume e. g. investment risks? B.3.2 Impact on the competitiveness of European industry The proposed system will be able to present to shippers a competitive offer in terms of cost and quality performance, particularly if the system can utilise scale advantages. The effects on transport prices and transport quality will depend both on the inherent efficiency and effectiveness of the system as such and on the competitive pressure that the introduction of a new viable alternative will create in the transport sector. These impacts on the freight transport sector will increase the competitiveness of European industry, shippers in general, and industry in the peripheral parts of Europe in particular. The latter parts of Europe have a distance disadvantage to the main markets in the more central parts of Europe. The proposed system will give some help in overcoming the distance disadvantage in two ways. It will represent a new efficient and effective transport alternative, and the new alternative may also physically circumvent road sections, where congestion and other problems are becoming strategic threats to the industry of these peripheral parts of Europe. This is a problem for the industry of the Nordic countries (road blockages in Germany) and of Spain and Portugal (the 10 of 66

11 Pyrenees). The proposed project thus has a potential impact on the endeavour to create equal economic conditions for industry of different regions within the EU B.3.3 Dissemination of project results The research results from the project will be disseminated through the following media: The results of the integrative efforts, the complete intermodal system scenario, and the implementation recommendations will be presented in a book The results of the different sub-projects will be presented in scientific journals, at scientific papers at conferences, and in industry journals, the latter in a non-technical writing style Seminar presentations Short courses on intermodal transport will be developed for industry and public organisations B.3.4 Impact via co-operation with selected actors from industry The research consortium will consist of universities and research institutes, that will carry out all the scientific parts of the proposed project. However, a close co-operation with selected companies and public organisations is expected to take place in the project. The following organisations will be contacted as co-operative partners in the project: Innovative companies running short-sea shipping in Europe using the kind of load units considered in this project Selected ports and terminal companies Railway infrastructure providers and freight train operators Some major shippers from various industries The role of the selected partners is twofold. They will supply data, good practice, and industry knowledge to the researchers. However, they are also expected to participate in research and development, particularly when the project has proceeded to a more applied stage. This interactive exchange of knowledge and participation is expected to have impact on important actors in the transport industry. The following companies have accepted to participate so far: Port of Gothenburg (CEO Eric Nilsson, eric.nilsson@portgot.se) Volvo Logistics Corporation (CEO Håkan Karlsson, hakan.karlsson@volvo.com) DFDS Tor Line (CEO Björn Petrusson, bjorn.petrusson@dfdstorline.com) Stora Enso, Transport and Distribution (Logistics Director Stig Wiklund, stig.wiklund@storaenso.com) The Swedish Railway Administration, Banverket (Research Director Malcolm Lundgren, malcolm.lundgren@hk.banverket.se) 11 of 66

12 B.3.5 Feasibility and potential market impact - results of a pre-study During the autumn of 2002 a limited pre-study was carried out by the Logistics and Transport Research Group, Dept. of Business Administration, Göteborg University (Bergqvist and Esping, 2002; Bergqvist, 2003). The study served several purposes. One purpose was to justify and validate the importance of this research proposal by presenting a first picture of the probable size of the potential market impact for an intermodal transport system of the kind discussed here. Another purpose was to test the feasibility of the approach regarding some aspects of data availability and research procedures. The results of the study are promising. The main assumptions and methodological choices of the study were the following: The study considered only the potential freight flows from Sweden, Denmark (only Zealand), and Norway to Spain, France, Belgium, and Portugal (but not flows in the opposite direction) Demand data were based on the Eurostat databases Comext and New Cronos, These flows were modified based on information from "Statistics Sweden" (due to reliability problems) and allocated regionally in loading and unloading countries according to population density of regions. The various components of the proposed transport system were based on existing vehicles, vessels and technologies under simplified assumptions, and neither component choice nor system design was optimised An 20-foot standardised ISO-container was chosen as load unit (with all its limitations) Gothenburg was chosen as port of the outgoing flows from the Nordic countries and Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Le Havre, Nantes Saint-Nazaire, Bilbao, and Sines where chosen as the receiving ports along the coast-line of Europe Vessel utilisation for calculating vessel capital costs was set to 80% (Vessel type: feeder vessel with the capacity of 700 TEU's), and alternative use was assumed possible in order to reach an 80% yearly capacity utilisation The landed cost per container from door to door of the proposed intermodal system was compared with the landed cost per container of direct road transport to find the geographical segments where the proposed intermodal system has a cost advantage. The landed cost includes road, rail, and sea transport plus terminal handling A restriction implying that the transit time from door to door of the proposed system must not exceed the transit time of the road transport by more than two days was stipulated for the market segments where the proposed system has a cost advantage Together, these assumptions imply that the competitiveness of the proposed intermodal system is somewhat underestimated. Furthermore, there are reasons to believe, which Eurostat officials do, that the Eurostat transport statistics hides a significant amount of potential goods. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the pre-study underestimates the market potential of the proposed intermodal system. The calculations show the following potential market for the proposed system under the assumptions given above: Tonnes of goods per year Number of 20 foot containers per year Number of road vehicle trips per year of 66

13 These figures reveal that at least trips by heavy long haul road vehicles could be conquered from the road traffic per year by a suitably designed sea-based intermodal system in this one way freight flow. More or less the same could be true for the flow in the opposite direction. The geographical market where the proposed system seems to be competitive includes Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and France (except a small corridor along the eastern frontier of France). A number of interesting sensitivity analyses was made. If the cost of road transport increases by 10%, calculations show that the proposed intermodal system will increase its market potential by 67%. If road transport cost increases by 20%, the market potential will increase by 210 %. The message from these sensitivity calculations is that transport policy instruments such as kilometre tax on road haulage are powerful instruments in creating conditions for an intermodal transport system of the kind proposed. Another interesting sensitivity calculation points at a 24% increase in market potential of the proposed system if railway costs can be reduced by 20%. In conclusion, this pre-study was carried out under simplifying assumptions. It considered only a minor part of all freight flows and a few variables. The chosen freight flow seems to be underestimated by the data source. The "system" assumed was not optimised component wise or system wise. Therefore, the impact of the proposed intermodal system most likely will be stronger than the one suggested by the outcome of the pre-study. B.3.6 Added value in carrying out research at a European level The need for a European mobilisation of activities via an integrated project is motivated by difference of the components involved in a pan-european intermodal door-to-door transport system. Total system standardisation and streamlining must be able to interact with local market differences. These conditions make it value-added to mix partner having good knowledge of local conditions as well as partners carrying out overall general research activities pertaining to design, simulation, evaluation and implementation of research. These two requirements may, of course, coincide in some cases. European mobilisation of activities is also called for by the obvious fact that no research organisation alone possesses a high competence in all areas needed for carrying out such a project. B.4 Implementation plan B.4.1 The research approach In order to develop and evaluate a detailed feasible scenario of a competitive European maritime-based door-to-door intermodal transport system for freight, a number of more or less interrelated studies must be carried out. It should be remembered that these studies, the subprojects, are interdependent and make up a system. So far, a number of sub-projects (underlined in the following) have been identified as necessary for fulfilling the research objectives. 13 of 66

14 B Market analysis Demand studies (A1) Purpose and research questions The main purpose of the demand studies is to predict future freight flows between relevant regions in Europe. Adequately defined, these flows can be seen as market potentials for the proposed intermodal system. The performance of the intermodal system in relation to unimodal road transport with which it competes will determine its market share. The demand studies will have to be performed by port hinterland and must consider local market conditions. The relevant goods concept for the intermodal system is easy to define. All goods that can be moved by lorry considering only physical restrictions (relevant goods) represent a market potential for the proposed intermodal system. The reason for the adoption of this definition is mainly that transport by road will be inevitable as a first or last link in a door-to-door intermodal transport chain in most cases of practical interest. In cases where consignors and consignees use railway sidings, the door-to-door use of load units will lead to the same definition since load units will be of sizes that can be carried by lorries. However, the most relevant goods concept to adopt (as the main alternative) is goods that is moved by lorry on distances exceeding x kilometre. We assume that this is possible. This definition gives a clear competitive situation between road transport and the proposed intermodal system. The demand for transportation in terms of relevant goods will be modelled spatially as freight flows between points of origin and points of destination. Each point, here called base point, will represent demand in a surrounding base district and thus represent demand from a number of shippers and consignees. A base point should normally be located to the centre of gravity of the base district. The degree of aggregation and simplification that can be accepted when forming the size of base districts for representing demand is an important research question. The answer to this question depends on several factors, among them the requirements of the analysis where the demand data is to be used in other parts of the research project, the availability of data, and the data collection cost. Output The most important output from the demand studies can be conceived as an O/D-matrix of freight flows between base points. Spatially, the market coverage of the O/D-matrix must be extended to all parts of Europe where the proposed intermodal system has any prospect of becoming competitive. In addition, a geographical safety margin must be added to the market coverage if it is deemed valuable to draw zones to show where combined road/rail transport is the most competitive mode. The O/D-matrix will be an important input to other research components of the project, e. g. in predicting whether direct road transport or intermodal transport will be the most competitive solution for a given freight flow. Freight flows will have to be expressed in goods weight and possibly also in goods volume. Further research will be necessary to decide whether other goods characteristics such as size of shipments, solid/liquid, dangerous/non dangerous, temperature sensitive etc. will have to be considered. These characteristics can be measured for more aggregated flows depending on their use in other sub-projects. Such characteristics have relevance for the design of load units 14 of 66

15 as regards both size and type. In particular, the distribution of length of shipments will be an important determinant of the lengths of containers, particularly in a module based system. GIS and similar models are convenient tools to use in demand studies and storing demand data and relating demand in an O/D-matrix to different explanative factors spatial models. GIS modelling will be used to create a data base of freight flows and demand related variables for use in other sub-projects, especially for the development of the computation tool (subproject H) The objective regarding the timing of research output is the following: Spatial allocation of base points after 5 months (A1.1) Crude estimates of freight flows measured in weight (O/D-matrix) after 10 months (A1.2) O/D matrices completed after 16 months (A1.3) Remaining demand characteristics if deemed necessary after 8 months (A1.4) Developing the required GIS databases for analysing demand data and storing the final O/D-matrix after 9 months (A1.5) Method The best research method for the demand study can be expected to vary by country. One data source is official statistics. Generally, the type of freight flows needed in this context is not available in official transport statistics. The statistics produced by Eurostat is not entirely sufficient for this purpose. The quality of the EU statistics varies by country and transport relation, and the statistics is generally not regionally distributed in the detailed way required by this project. There are reasons to believe that the EU statistics underestimates the real freight flow by road. The national transport and trade statistics suffer from the same problem. The most relevant method to use in most cases would be to collect primary data for the project directly from carriers. However, this is a time consuming and expensive method to carry out generally. Therefore Eurostat data combined in some cases with national transport and trade statistics will have to be used as the basic sources. In some cases and for some characteristics it may be possible to complement official statistics with carrier statistics and statistics from surveys among shippers to get correct flows between nations or major regions. These flows may be allocated to base districts according to measures of spatial distribution of industry production or population. In the end, the combination of primary data collection methods and official statistics is likely to be the solution. The demand studies require some knowledge of national conditions, and access to a network of informants will be of value. The responsible research provider may be able to draw on other consortia members' national networks in this respect. In an early stage of the demand study it is necessary to decide which geographical resolution to work with for defining base districts. GIS is a useful tool to define proper regions for transport analysis. In this project it will probably be proper to use the zoning algorithm addressing spatial autocorrelation by You et. al. (1998). GIS is also ideal for storing, retrieving, and manipulating information about base points. This property will be used for allocating aggregate demand to freight flows between base points. 15 of 66

16 State of the art No relevant studies encompassing the type of results needed in this project in terms of freight concept, spatial characteristics, and geographic coverage have been found. However, some elements of the previous European studies, like STREAMS, CODE-TEN, etc, could give some background knowledge for defining the O/D matrixes. Research provider University of Gothenburg Logistics and Transport Research Group Prof. Arne Jensen Researchers University of Las Palmas Prof. Juan Carlos Martin Hernandez Researchers CERIAS Prof. Aura Reggiani Researchers Chalmers University of Technology, The Dep. of Urban Transport and Land Use Planning Research Director Anders Hagson Researchers Shippers' choice function (B) Purpose and research questions The purpose of this sub-project is to develop a model for predicting shippers' choice between well-defined transport alternatives given the performance of each alternative in terms of transport quality offered and price to the shipper (could be a generalised price including indirect costs). The term shipper is taken here to include such actors, mainly forwarders, which make mode decisions on behalf of their customers. The scenario may be a situation where the choice stands between the direct road transport alternative and the proposed intermodal alternative. However, in some cases the choice may involve three alternatives where combined road/rail transport may be the third. The choice model must be applicable to individual freight flows between the base points of the O/D-matrix. This means that the link between individual shippers' choices and the aggregate effect on base point demand must be modelled. It must be able to predict the relative modal split of a given freight flow between direct road transport and a competing alternative as a function of the performance of the alternatives and shippers' preferences in terms of transport quality weighted against price. The model must represent the most importance choice determinants that differ between the modes considered such as price, transit time, and reliability. Furthermore, the general model should be possible to estimate regionally or nationally if deemed necessary, since the preferences may be different for different parts of Europe (perhaps dependent on measurable 16 of 66

17 background factors). The term "choice function" should be understood in the sense of "preference function", since the choice will not be known until the properties of the supply are given. These properties may be created in an optimisation process. Output Two kinds of output seem to be needed from this module. One output of the research is at a general level regarding the methodology to use in building and estimating models of shippers' choice functions. At least two or three different approaches should be developed. One should be a robust, common sense approach that is likely to give results in all situations. In addition, some more advanced approaches should be developed which are designed specifically to represent the multi-criteria aspects of the problem. The second kind of output is the empirically based estimates of shipper' choice functions which will result when the general methodology is applied to the entire market or to market segments. Method Two different methods will be tried. One is to use surveys among shippers' transport buyers. Direct questions related to mode choice and factors explaining mode choice will be used in the surveys. The other method is more advanced and based on different types of stated preferences. These preferences may be revealed in surveys and in systematically varied choice experiments and analysed statistically using multivariate statistical methods, e. g. conjoint analysis (see Louvierre and Street, 2000) State of the art Stated preference and similar methods are rare in freight transport and no studies addressing our particular problem seems to have be presented. An overview is given in Hensher and Button, Research provider University of Gothenburg Logistics and Transport Research Group Prof. Arne Jensen Researchers B Transport system design This block of sub-projects related to the system design includes specification of the efficient and effective system components and their integration into an optimal design of intermodal door-to-door transport system. In such a context, the particular system components will not have to be developed in full technical details. Nevertheless, each component must be convenient for implementation and based on existing technology either already applied or existing as a concept. Eventual innovations and new developments will only include general specification of technical, technological and operational performance of particular components at the level of details where their operational, economic, quality, and 17 of 66

18 environmental performance and associated impacts can be estimated. The system design will be guided by principles related to interoperability, system balancing, and standardisation of components in order to achieve the necessary (competitive) efficiency, effectiveness and environmental friendliness. The various sub-projects of the system design are described as follows: The system organisation of operations and technology (C) Organisation of operations (C1) Purpose and research question The proposed short-sea shipping intermodal transport system has the spatial configuration of a network, which consists of nodes and links. In general, the network nodes are represented by intermodal terminals, where exchange of freight shipments between transport modes takes place. The terminals are connected by physical infrastructure such as short-sea shipping routes, railway lines and inland waterways. The transport services in the network will be provided at least at three levels (sub-networks). The first sub-network consists of the main port-to-port services carried out by the short-sea vessel services and collection and distribution of freight shipments within the ports hinterlands (up to 100 km), which will be carried out by trucks and/or short-distance shuttle trains. In this case, the freight origins and destinations are zones located in the corresponding port hinterlands while the short-sea shipping is the main transport mode operating within the intermodal chains. The second sub-network will include direct port-to-port short-sea services carried out by short-sea vessels with extended services to/from the inland waterways ports as the main portion of the intermodal chain. The collection and distribution of freight shipments will be carried out similarly as in at the first sub-network-by trucks and short-distance shuttle trains running in the ports hinterlands up to 100 km. In this case the origins and destinations of freight shipments will be the zones (hinterlands) around the sea and inland waterway ports. The third sub-network will include the short-sea shipping services similarly as in the first or second sub-networks combined by the long distance trains as the main transport modes within particular logistic chains. In this case, the origins and destinations of freight shipments will be the port hinterlands as well as the zones around the rail/road inland intermodal terminals. The organisation of particular sub-networks will allow bundling of freight flows of loading units at different scale, for example, long distance international flows with both long and short distance national and regional flows. In addition, such bundling will be able to justify using of short-sea shipping (and corresponding vessels) as the main transport mode within the system. In addition, multilevel bundling is expected to allow more efficient and effective utilisation of the intermodal transport infrastructure, facilities and equipment, and transport vehicles involved. As well, co-ordination of operations and services of different transport modes at the interfacing locations (ports and inland terminals) need to be established in order to achieve the system (network s) competitiveness in terms of the attributes of service auch as transport time, reliability, punctuality, and costs. Consequently, in terms of the spatial configuration and time pattern, the particular sub-networks will be point-to-point, line, hub-and-spokes, and collection-distribution networks. Looking for an optimal network layout in terms of its competitiveness to equivalent pure road services will be a challenging issue. The above-mentioned performance in the form of attributes of quality of services provided by the particular system sub-networks need to be analysed and modelled in order to assess their 18 of 66