Development of a dynamic decision making e-platform for EU intermodal freight transport

Abstract

Global trade is essential for the economic situation and the success of the European Union. It affects the lives of all EU citizens. Every day they experience products and services which are produced outside their own country and outside the European Union. However, transportation wastes our already limited natural resources and significantly contributes to a major challenge of the 21st century, Global warming. More than a quarter of the worldwide CO2-emissions are caused by the transportation sector, with a tendency to grow faster than in any other sector. In order to obtain a sustainable form of transport the European Commission is promoting co-modality that consists on combining several transport modes within the same transport chain. The objective of this study is to provide a useful tool orientated to the transportation of goods between logistic platforms from almost all the countries from the EU. Three different parameters are taken into account to optimize the solutions proposed: the transport time, the transport cost and the carbon dioxide emissions.