Planning Multimodal Freight Transport Operations: a Literature Review

Purpose: Multimodal freight transport developed in the transportation sector as an alternative to unimodal transport faced with the challenges brought by the growing global demand for transporting goods. Multimodal transport is the transportation of goods using at least two modes of transport, usually door-to-door. The common transport modes include railways, maritime routes, and the roads. When restructuring and reconfiguring their logistics strategies, freight operators seek optimal operational plans to increase cost efficiency, improve customer service effectiveness, and enhance environmental sustainability throughout their entire supply chain network. In addition, collaborative planning enables multimodal transport providers (MTPs) in the multimodal transport chain to optimize mainly their operational plans. A vast collection of scientific literature focuses on different objectives taking into account various limitations. For instance, in the context of short-term planning the challenge is to take real-time decisions considering the interests of all stakeholders. With the need for real-time decision making, this problem becomes complex, dynamic, and stochastic. Thus, the purpose of this study is to concentrate on the literature related to dynamic processes at the operational level from customer to consignee and provide a systematic classification of different planning and solution techniques. Methodology/approach: Multimodal operational planning is investigated from two perspectives: modelling modal shift policy and planning of multimodal freight transportation. We describe the modal shift policies, discuss the advantages and barriers, and elaborate on the actors involved in this process and the factors affecting efficiency. Furthermore, we explain the importance of these factors for operational freight planning and denote the constraints in the planning problems. Finally, we present an illustrative example of a multimodal freight transportation network from customer to consignee. Findings: Modal shift and operational planning lead to reduced lead times and operational costs, and also ensure convenient transportation according to the user's preferences. Studies on these issues can be examined with respect to the selection of non-dominated solutions and applicable routes determined based on the preferences of customers, pricing techniques, and revenue management methodologies. Value: This study consolidates the knowledge in operational planning of multimodal freight dioxide mitigation issues as novelty. Moreover, it considers not only operational planning but also pricing and revenue management methodologies. It is a valuable reference to researchers who wish to comprehend entire operations in multimodal transport from different perspectives. 553 22nd ISL 2017 Ljubljana, Slovenia, 9 – 12th July 2017