Methodological shortcuts in intermodal freight transport: Critical review and proposals

Freight traffic forecasts face many obstacles in assessing the effectiveness of a transport policy. Traffic data are not available, costs are unknown, and total cost is often used as a benchmark. Many assumptions are therefore needed to overcome these difficulties. We examine a specific example proposed by the University of Antwerp: combining traffic from the ports of Dunkirk and Zeebrugge to Dusseldorf. It would promote the use of intermodal transport, exploit the economies of scale of the rail mode to extend the hinterland of the ports and reduce transport nuisances. We show how the assumptions lead to a questionable result by overestimating traffic and underestimating intermodal costs. We propose some improvements to better establish the costs and identify the conditions that would allow the intermodal solution to prevail. We also show that the total cost masks the unequal distribution of the collective benefit: some actors gain and others lose.