This study defines a methodology to compute unitary costs for freight transportation modes. The main objective was to gather relevant costs data to support the formulation and evaluation of railway, road, pipelines and port projects. This article will concentrate on the following steps: Compilation and analysis of relevant modal cost studies, Methodological adjustments to make cost figures comp...

Despite the obstacles caused by the data constraints and diversity of industrial structure, analysis of the service sector is growing in importance. Focusing on one service industry in particular—freight transportation—a research team led by Senior Fellow Yoko Konishi set about analyzing the time cost as well as the monetary cost—cost of gasoline, expressway tolls, drivers' wages, and so forth—...

Since railway transport possesses the advantage of high volume and low carbon emissions, diverting some freight from road to railway will help reduce the negative environmental impacts associated with transport. This paper develops a flow assignment model for quantitative analysis of diverting truck freight to railway. First, a general network which considers road transportation, railway transp...

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is an intermodal agency tasked with the mobility of the state's citizens, businesses and visitors. Freight and public transit are essential components of Michigan's transportation system. To further MDOT's goal of leveraging technology to maximize safety, mobility, environmental performance, and asset management through mode-specific research pro...

This paper presents a dynamic-economic model analyzing the fluctuation of container freight rate due to the interactions between the demand for container transportation services and the container fleet capacity. The demand for container transportation services is derived from international trade and is assumed exogenous. The container fleet capacity increases with new orders made two years ago,...

Transportation planning requires both, decisions on the choice of transport resources and decisions on the deployment of the chosen resources. Therefore, transportation orders must be assigned to resources for fulfillment while the operations for the usage of each resource have to be planned. Most freight forwarding companies have to cope with a strongly fluctuating demand on the transportation...

A well-functioning freight transportation system is an essential element in any successful economy. However, at the beginning of the new millennium, the prediction is that the demand for goods movement will outstrip the rate of improvements to the physical infrastructure. Marked growth in time-sensitive freight markets will tax demands on a system that already is operating near capacity in some...

In this paper, we develop a freight transportation model for railway network considering hazmat transportation issue. In the transportation system considered, different customers can request for carrying hazmat and non- hazmat boxes. It is assumed that the sequence of the trains in the network is known. The objective is assigning the non-hazmat boxes and hazmat boxes to wagons of the trains so ...

In order to improve profitability, freight forwarding companies try to organize their operational transportation planning systematically, considering not only their own fleet but also external resources. Such external resources include vehicles from closely related subcontractors, autonomous common carriers on the transportation market, and cooperating partners in horizontal coalitions. In this...

The geography of freight transportation evolves at various scales, but it is increasingly acknowledged that freight flows occurring at the local level are a result of global and regional economic processes. Internationally, distribution networks have expanded, namely through the division of production, manufacturing and consumption. This has been accompanied by a growth of the quantity of freig...