Planning Problems in Intermodal Freight Transport ...

containers in beginning terminals as well as their reloading place after transhipment at a
rail/rail terminal, with the objective to minimize transfer operations and therefore the use of
handling equipment. The problem is formulated as a minimum cost multi-commodity network
flow problem with binary variables. The following two cases are analysed: first optimisation
of container transfers with imposed initial loading and second joint optimisation of initial
loading and reloading. Both cases are considered in the situation of unlimited storage capacity
and in the situation of limited storage capacity. Because of the complexity of the problem, the
authors developed a heuristic solution methodology. Experiments on large-scale real datasets
show that joint optimization of initial loading and transfer of containers increases the
productivity of bottleneck equipment.
In Table 2 the papers, described in this section, are positioned in the decision maker/time
horizon matrix.
Table 2. Multiple decision makers
Decision maker Time horizon
Strategic Tactical Operational
Drayage operator
Terminal operator
Network operator
Intermodal operator
Van Duin
and Van
Ham
(1998)
6.2 Multiple Decision Levels
Gambardella,
Rizzoli and
Funk (2002)
Evers and
De Feijter
(2004)
Bostel and Dejax
(1998)
A general summary of decisions facing a terminal operator can be found in Vis and de
Koster [70]. For each process taking place at a container terminal, the authors discuss types of
material handling equipment used and related decision problems at all three decision levels.