1、 中文 3211 字 外文翻译 原文 Service Design Models for Rail Intermodal Transportation Material Source: University of Quebec in Montreal Author: Teodor Gabriel Summary.Intermodal transportation forms the backbone of the world trade and exhibits significant growth resulting in modifications to the structure of
2、maritime and land-based transportation systems,as well as in the increase of the volume and value of intermodal traffic moved by each individual mode.Railroads play an important role within the intermodal chain. Their own interests and environment-conscious public policy have railroads aiming to inc
3、rease their market share.To address the challenge of efficiently competing with trucking in offering customers timely,flexible,and low-cost transportation services,railroads propose new types of services and enhanced performances.From an Operations Research point of view,this requires that models be
4、 revisited and appropriate methods be devised.The paper discusses some of these issues and developments focusing on tactical planning issues and identifies challenging and promising research directions. Key words: Intermodal transportation, Freight rail carriers, Tactical planning, Full-asset-utiliz
5、ation policies, Intermodal shuttle networks, Design-balanced service net-work design 1 Introduction Intermodal transportation forms the backbone of the world trade and exhibits significant growth. The value of multimodal shipments in the U.S., include parcel, postal service, courier, truck-and-rail,
6、 truck-and-water, and rail-and-water, increased from about 662 billion US dollars to about 1.1 trillion in a period of nine years(1993 to 200331). In the same period, the total annual world container traffic grew from some 113.2 millions of TEU(20 feet equivalent container units) to almost 255 milli
7、ons, reaching an estimated 304 millions of TEUs by 2005. Intermodal transportation involves, sometimes integrates, at least two modes and services of transportation to improve the efficiency of the door-to-door distribution process. The growth in intermodal traffic thus resulted in significant modif
8、ication to the structure of maritime and land-based transportation systems as well as in major increase of the volumes and value of intermodal traffic moved by each individual mode. Thus,for example, in 2003, for the first time ever, intermodal freight surpassed coal as a source of revenue for major
9、, Class I,U.S. railroads, representing 23% of the carriers gross revenue 31. The growth of intermodal rail traffic in the U.S., which reached 11 million trailers (26% of total) and containers (76%) in 2004,is the direct result of the rapid growth in the use of containers for international trade,impo
10、rts accounting for the majority of the intermodal activity 31. Governmental policy may also contribute to re-structuring intermodal transportation and shifting parts of the land part of the journey from trucking toward rail and water (interior and coastal navigation). This is, for example, the main
11、focus of the European Union as stated in its 2001 White Paper on transportation 20. The reason for this is to reduce road congestion and promote environmentally friendlier modes of transportation. The instruments favored to implement such policies vary from road taxes to penalize truk-based transpor
12、tation to the support of new rail services for intermodal traffic. The performance of intermodal transportation depends directly on the performance of the key individual elements of the chain, navigation companies, railroads, motor carriers, ports, etc., as well as on the quality of their interactio
13、ns regarding operations, information, and decisions. The Intelligent Transportation Systems and Internet-fueled electronic business technologies provide the framework to address the latter challenges. Regarding the former, carriers and terminals, on their own or in collaboration, strive to continuou
14、sly improve their performance. Railroads are no exception. Indeed, for intermodal as for general traffic, railroads face significant challenges to efficiently compete with trucking in offering customers timely, flexible, and low-cost, long-haul transportation services. Railroads are rising to the ch
15、allenge by proposing new types of services and enhanced performances. Thus, North-American railroads have created intermodal subdivisions that operate so-called land-bridges providing efficient container transportation by long, double-stack train between the East and the West coasts and between thes
16、e ports and the industrial core of the continent (so-called mini land bridges). Most North-American railroads are now enforcing some form of scheduled service. In Europe, where congestion has long forced the scheduling of trains, the separation of the infrastructure ownership from service providing
17、increases the competition and favors the emergence of new carriers and services. Moreover, the expansion of the Community to the east provides the opportunity to introduce new services that avoid the over-congested parts of the European network. New container and trailer-dedicated shuttle-train netw
18、orks are thus being created within the European Community. The planning and management processes of these new railroad-based intermodal systems and operations are generally no different from those of traditional systems in terms of issues and goals, profitability, efficiency, and customer satisfacti
19、on. The new operating policies introduce, however, elements and requirements into the planning processes which, from an Operations Research point of view, require that models be revisited and appropriate methods be devised. This paper aims to discuss some of these issues and developments. It focuses
20、 on the tactical planning of rail intermodal services in North America and Europe and is based on a number of observations and on-going projects. Its goal is to be informative, point to challenges, and identify opportunities for research aimed at both methodological developments and actual applicati
21、ons. 2 Intermodal and Rail-Based Transportation Many transportation systems are multimodal, their infrastructure supporting various transportation modes, such as truck, rail, air, and ocean/river navigation, carriers operating and offering transportation services on these modes. Then, broadly define
22、d, intermodal transportation refers to the transportation of people or freight from their origin to their destination by a sequence of at least two transportation modes. Transfers from one mode to the other are performed at intermodal terminals, which may be a sea port or an in-land terminal, e.g.,
23、rail yards, river ports, airports, etc. Although both people and freight can be transported using an intermodal chain, in this paper, we focus on the latter. The fundamental idea of intermodal transportation is to consolidate loads for efficient long-haul transportation performed by large ocean vess
24、els and, on land, mostly by rail and truck. Local pick-up and delivery is usually performed by truck. Mostly of the freight intermodal transportation is performed by using containers. Intermodal transportation is not restricted, however, to containers and intercontinental exchanges. For instance, the transportation of express and regular
