Train Slot Cooperation in Multicarrier, International Rail-Based Intermodal Freight Transport

rail operations from infrastructure ownership and management, the government-owned national railways still maintain a symbiotic relationship with infrastructure providers. New entrants to rail business face considerable hurdles in terms of access to infrastructure and operations at border crossings. Moreover, passenger traffic has precedence over freight traffic. Thus, train timetables are created with priority for national carriers, leaving only residual track capacity for international freight traffic. The EC’s interoperability directives envision an environment in which new sufficiently capitalized entrants could enter and meet market needs through various types of specialized freight services. To enable this requires the ability to request and obtain slots (a slot, referred to as a train slot, is defined herein as the use of track capacity along a specific stretch of track for a given short period of time) in a timely manner. While the process is progressively becoming more transparent, rules for allocating slots remain riddled with inefficiency. In a low-traffic environment, slots may not be scarce resources, and some inefficiency in their allocation may be tolerated. However, there are indications that certain portions of the rail network under consideration are already exhibiting high levels of utilization, and slots will eventually come to be viewed as the valuable resources they are. Under the objectives of the EC which motivated this work, it is envisioned that considerable increases in rail freight traffic could be expected for new services coupled with various technological, administrative, and operational improvements (2). In such an environment, flexible means for utilizing slots become essential to attaining the desired service levels and associated efficiencies necessary to contain the cost of providing the service. Such flexible means fall under the general umbrella of CDM schemes, which constitute a class of approaches for the management of shared or public resources by a collection of private and public entities or agents with individual goals. The available slots for operating international trains given national timetables can be patched together to form international train timetables and routes. These available slots (or bundles of slots) are sold for operation by various carriers. This mechanism of allocating slots can lead to inefficiencies that can be mitigated through cooperative agreements between carriers. Three strategies for cooperation (i.e., CDM schemes), designed to overcome these inefficiencies associated with operating across the countries of the REORIENT corridor, are proposed in this paper: (a) train slot cooperation, (b) train space leasing, and (c) train slot swapping techniques. The three proposed CDM strategies take into account the carrier train timetables and the predetermined routes along which the trains will operate. Through the CDM schemes involving slot leasing, Train Slot Cooperation in Multicarrier, International Rail-Based Intermodal Freight Transport