Available tools are insufficient to provide the needed systemwide view for planning future freight transportation systems based on the coordinated use of more than one mode of transportation. Many existing tools are either mode specific (they only address a single mode of transportation) or too microscopic in scope (they address only detailed traffic flows or facility operations). No comprehensive tool exists that considers the level of performance of the total system, which is important due to the many interdependencies that exist between the different modes of transportation. In some cases, optimizing just a particular component of the transportation network could result in sub-optimization of the entire transportation system. Intermodal freight transportation planning tools are needed to optimize future freight transportation systems. This thesis presents a prototype Virtual Intermodal Transportation System (VITS) that simulates the movement of freight via highways, railways, and waterways on a statewide level. The requirements for the VITS are researched and identified. The general processes of building the VITS prototype, the results from hypothetical case studies using the VITS as a planning and analysis tool, and potential improvements to the methodology are also discussed.

In the current literature and practice, no systematic and user-oriented performance measures are available to evaluate intermodal transportation and facilitate mode-choice decision-making. Most existing transportation measures are defined for one specific mode and are not consistent with each other. This research establishes a systematic and user-oriented performance measurement system for intermodal transportation. Five major categories of performance measures are identified: mobility and reliability, safety, environmental impact, long term transportation cost efficiency, and economic impact. For each category, several quantitative measures are given to capture the features of the system and evaluate how well transportation systems can meet the needs of their users, who are investors (including government agents and stakeholders), individuals, industries, and the society (or the public). The proposed measures are scalable so that they can be used to compare systems with different sizes. Since none of them is mode specific, no matter how many modes and what kinds of modes are involved, a transportation system can be evaluated by the measure set. This research tries to avoid any overlap or omission among the measures and distinguish performance measures from factors. A transportation system can be improved through changing some factors, like capacity, but project priority should be decided based on measures rather than factors. The proposed measures are also verified by a survey conducted by this research and some industrial practices. In the thesis, a case study on the State of Mississippi is conducted based on the identified performance measures. The measures with the case study can help to promote transportation intermodalism in the U.S. and quantitatively demonstrate the benefits of intermodal transportation. The proposed measures differ in many aspects from traditional measures. The proposed set of performance measurement system can have a significant impact on development of U.S. transportation system.

The twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, California have become the focal point of the influx of containers from East Asia and China. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between monthly Class I Transportation (T&E) employment and combined monthly TEU traffic at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, California for the years 1997 through 2006. The Spearman Rank-order Correlation Coefficient was administered to analyze the relationships. Results indicated that proximity is not the sole factor in a relationship between monthly Class I Transportation(T&E) employment and combined monthly TEU traffic at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. This study also contains a historical analysis of the development of railroad intermodal transportation.

No description available.

This dissertation presents a functional unit that will be used within the Intermodal Simulator for the Analysis of Pedestrian Traffic (ISAPT). Such simulation systems can be used by infrastructure designers and public transport designers for evaluating and optimizing building designs and layouts. Activity-based travel demand analysis is one of the most important methods for studying pedestrian behavior in that it reflects how people travel inside intermodal facilities driven by a clear purpose based on their prior knowledge of the facility layout and its resources. In this dissertation, the proposed framework used for pedestrian travel simulation inside an intermodal facility is divided into three aspects, activity scheduling, destination/route choice analysis and rescheduling modeling. Discrete choice models were developed to describe in sufficient detail the various activity scheduling and destination choice behavior of pedestrians in the planning stage, as well as to describe their rescheduling behavior at the execution stage while they are traveling inside airports. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the models, a numerical example was provided for the activity choice model and a case study was also included of destination choice. Both revealed preference (RP) survey data and stated preference (SP) survey data have been used to calibrate and validate the discrete choice models. The main conclusion of this dissertation is that modeling pedestrian behavior inside an intermodal facility is feasible. Use of this framework will provide simulation system with the capability to take into account natural pedestrian behavior, not only of what they will do, where they will perform it, and which path they will use to get there, but also enhancing the travel efficiency by providing rescheduling behavior under various traffic conditions. Due to the limited knowledge concerning pedestrian behavior in public transportation facilities, laboratory experiments were conducted in order to fill the blank. Both the setup of the laboratory experiments and the data collection methods employed in this research are original. Numerical examples have shown the validity and the applicability of each developed model for each of three types of behavior.

Cette thèse est réalisée au sein du Laboratoire de Génie Industriel et Production de Metz (LGIPM) et s'inscrit donc dans une dynamique à la fois européenne et mondiale qui est la réduction des impacts environnementaux et sociétaux des systèmes de transport. Notre but est de développer un système d'aide à la décision au choix d'un itinéraire de fret ayant le moins d'impacts possible sur l'environnement et la société. Pour se faire, nous avons défini des fonctions qui permettent de calculer pour chaque chemin d'un réseau de transport intermodal, les critères économiques (coût, temps, dégâts dus aux transbordements) et les critères écologiques (pollution, consommation d'énergie, nuisances sonores et risque d'accident) à considérer. Par la suite, nous avons construit un modèle de plus court chemin multiobjectif permettant d’optimiser les sept critères ainsi définis. Pour résoudre ce modèle, un algorithme de colonies de fourmis multiobjectif a été mis en place afin de prendre en compte le grand nombre de critères et l'intermodalité du réseau. Une implémentation est ensuite réalisée sur un réseau de transport intermodal se basant sur des données géographiques réelles et les performances de l’algorithme mis en place sont analysées et prouvées / The topic of this thesis is about environmental and societal impacts abatement within the green supply chain. This thesis is taking place in the Laboratory of Industrial Engineering and Production of Metz (LGIPM). Our goal is to develop a decision support system in choosing a path with the less environmental and societal impacts. For building our decision support system, we defined a mathematical model which computes for each part in our transportation network, the travel time, the transportation cost and the damage due to transshipment, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted, the energy consumption, the noise emitted and the accident risk. From this graph, we built a multiobjective shortest path problem. A multiobjective ant colony algorithm MOSPACO (Ant colony optimization for multiobjective shortest path problem) is then proposed to solve the proposed multiobjective shortest path problem; this new algorithm aims to take into account the large number of criteria and intermodal network. The running of the algorithm gives a Pareto front from which the decision maker can choose his desired itinerary

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop models and solution approaches to identify the critical hierarchies of railroad and surface transportation network infrastructures, and to facilitate re-routing options that will be necessary for traffic management decision makings in the event of a disaster. We focus on building mathematical models for routing/re-routing of traffic considering the congestion effects which are obvious in the disrupted networks due to disaster. Based on these models, the critical hierarchies of infrastructures are determined. For railroad, we develop two different models: the first one considers ‘unit’ train re-routing and the other one considers Train Design approach. For intermodal system, the optimization model facilitates optimal re-routing of traffic using three surface transportation modes: highway, railway and waterway, considering the congestion characteristics of each mode. For the first model of railroad routing, the optimization model optimally routes unit trains based on a minimum cost network flow formulation with nonlinear objective function. The nonlinear objective function is approximated with a piece-wise linear function to make the model computationally tractable. The second model, known as Train Design optimization, is a highly combinatorial and complex optimization problem. The developed model’s computational complexity suggests us to use heuristic solution procedures. We develop a special heuristic algorithm to route the traffic in the congested network. In this heuristic procedure, we divide the problem into two sub-problems (SPs): SP-1 is termed as Block-to-Train Assignment (BTA) problem, and SP-2 is termed as Train Routing (TR) problem. BTA problem provides a feasible solution that includes the minimum number of required trains with the pick-up and drop-off points of the blocks carried by these trains, and TR problem ensures the optimal routing of these trains. Similar to railroad, an optimization model is developed for optimal routing/rerouting of traffic using the intermodal network. It is a mixed integer programming (MIP) problem, which is not practical to solve for real-world problem instances within reasonable amount of time. Linear relaxation to this model provides a very good lower bound closer to optimal solution. Therefore, we implemented our case-study for a realworld intermodal transportation system of five U.S. states.

As emissões globais de dióxido de carbono cresceram em mais de 100% desde 1971 (IEA, 2013), sendo que o aumento foi mais acentuado no período entre 2000 e 2010 (IPCC, 2014). O Brasil ocupa o 13º lugar no ranking mundial dos principais países emissores de gases de efeito estufa (IEA, 2012) e, portanto, é indispensável que alternativas de redução das emissões nacionais sejam estudadas, entre elas, a adoção de modos de transporte mais sustentáveis. Apesar do modo ferroviário ser energeticamente mais eficiente que o rodoviário (ICF CONSULTING, 2009), a extensão da malha ferroviária brasileira é reduzida, sendo necessário associar o transporte ferroviário a etapas de coleta e distribuição da carga por rodovia, o que pode significar maiores gastos energéticos. Em vista disso, este trabalho teve por objetivo propor uma metodologia para estimativa da redução de emissões de dióxido de carbono por meio do transporte intermodal em comparação ao exclusivamente rodoviário. O modelo de emissões desenvolvido é versátil para aplicação em múltiplas situações, não restringindo a região brasileira de estudo e a carga ferroviária. Basicamente, é necessário conhecer o percurso utilizado, bem como o consumo de combustível em litros/tku por trecho ferroviário, além do fator de consumo de combustível médio na rodovia. A metodologia foi aplicada especificamente ao transporte de soja brasileira para exportação. O problema foi abordado em escala nacional, sendo que as origens da carga foram detalhadas por município e as distâncias rodoviárias foram calculadas com a ferramenta Google Maps. Para cada município produtor de soja foram estimadas as emissões associadas às duas alternativas de transporte, sendo a visualização dos resultados realizada por meio de heat map, elaborado em função do potencial de economia de emissões (%) de cada município. Com base nesse mapa, foram apontadas as regiões geográficas do país, onde o transporte intermodal apresenta maiores ganhos ambientais. Por fim, os resultados foram confrontados com o mapa de economias obtido por CRAIG et al. (2012) para os Estados Unidos, sendo o impacto da distância ao terminal de embarque e da distância total da rota na economia de emissões analisado. / Global carbon dioxide emissions have more than doubled since 1971 (IEA, 2013), increasing at a higher rate between 2000 and 2010 (IPCC, 2014). Brazil occupies the 13th position in the ranking of the worlds largest greenhouse gases emitters (IEA, 2012) and, therefore, it is essential to consider alternatives regarding emissions reduction at national level, including sustainable transport systems. Although rail is more fuel efficient than truck (ICF CONSULTING, 2009), the Brazilian rail network is concentrated in a few regions, requiring association of the rail transport to pre- and post-haulage by road, that might lead to higher energy consumption. Thus, this research aimed to develop a methodology to estimate the potential reduction of carbon dioxide emissions due to intermodal transportation when compared to trucking. The emissions model is versatile in terms of possible applications, since it is not restricted to a specific Brazilian region or any good type transported. Basically, it is necessary to know the general route, the fuel consumption in liter/tku for each rail stretch and the average fuel consumption factor of the truck. This method was applied specifically to the Brazilian soybean exportations. The approach of the problem was at the national level and the origins of the cargo corresponded to all the soybean producing towns. Furthermore, road distances were calculated using the Google Maps tool. For each town, emissions were estimated considering both transportation alternatives: intermodal and trucking. Then, the results were presented in a heat map, elaborated in function of the potential carbon savings (%) for each town. Based on this map, the regions where the intermodal route means environmental gains were indicated. Finally, the results were compared to the American carbon savings map created by CRAIG et al. (2012), addressing the impact of terminal distance and total distance travelled on emissions savings.

O etanol, produto proveniente da indústria sucroalcooleira, um dos setores mais importantes da economia brasileira, atrai a atenção dos países desenvolvidos. O aumento de sua demanda em todo o mundo, motivado por razões econômicas e ambientais, impulsiona sua exportação. O volume exportado passou de 750 milhões de litros em 2003 para 3,5 bilhões de litros em 2006 e os produtores estimam que em cinco anos este volume alcance 6,5 bilhões de litros. Diante da perspectiva de acréscimo nas exportações, e do fato de quase 90% da produção brasileira concentra-se no Centro-Sul, esta dissertação tem por objetivo analisar as alternativas de transporte de etanol para exportação no médio prazo, baseado no plano de investimentos proposto pelo projeto do corredor de exportação de etanol da Transpetro, um dos investimentos propostos para melhorar a eficiência logística do transporte de etanol. Tais investimentos pretendem atender a demanda instalada pelo mercado internacional de forma satisfatória, garantindo o suprimento do combustível e prevenindo o surgimento de gargalos logísticos motivados por falta de infra-estrutura suficiente para o escoamento da produção. Foram avaliadas três alternativas de transporte que representam a movimentação de etanol das unidades produtoras aos portos: alternativa rodoviária, alternativa rodo-dutoviária, e alternativa rodo-hidro-dutoviária. Definidas as alternativas, foram identificadas as trinta principais zonas produtoras de etanol e analisadas as alternativas específicas para cada uma. Assim, foi possível identificar as principais vantagens competitivas das alternativas de transporte por região produtora e verificar os ganhos derivados do transporte por dutos e pela hidrovia no escoamento da produção de etanol até os principais portos. / Ethanol, a product originated from the sugarcane and ethanol industry, one of the most important sectors in the brazilian economy is attracting the interest of the developed countries. The exportation of ethanol is stimulated by the increasing worldwide demand driven by economic and environmental reasons. The exported volume increased from more than 750 million liters in 2003 to 3.5 billion liters in 2006 and, in the next five years, the brazilian producers expect that this volume will reach 6.5 billion liters. Because of this expectation in increasing exportations of ethanol, and being aware that the center-south region of Brazil produces almost 90% of the brazilian ethanol, the objective of this dissertation is to analyze the alternatives of transportation of ethanol for exportation in the medium term. This study is based in the Transpetro´s corridor of ethanol exportation investment plan, which is one of the proposed investments to increase the logistic efficiency of the transportation of ethanol. These investments intend to satisfactorily fulfill the demand of the international market, guaranteeing the supply of ethanol and preventing the appearance of logistic gaps due to lacks of infra-structure for transporting the product. Three alternatives of transportation were evaluated, representing the transportation of ethanol from the manufacturing units to the ports: roadway alternative, road-pipeline alternative and road-waterway-pipeline alternative. After the definition of these alternatives, the thirty major manufacturing zones of ethanol were defined and each zone had these alternatives analyzed. As a result, the major competitive advantages of the transportation alternatives by zone were identified. Also, the potential gains of transporting ethanol to the major seaports by pipelines and waterways were evaluated.

O crescente interesse por fontes alternativas de energia, sobretudo por aquelas que consigam mitigar as emissões de gases causadores do efeito estufa (GEE), tem feito com que a produção de biocombustíveis aumentasse significativamente. Neste cenário o etanol produzido a partir da cana de açúcar, tem apresentado vantagem em relação a outros biocombustíveis, uma vez que a energia produzida é relativamente alta quando comparada com a consumida em seu processo produtivo. Neste contexto, as exportações brasileiras, principalmente as da região Centro-Sul, tentam suprir as necessidades mundiais através da produção excedente de etanol no país. No entanto, há gargalos logísticos na distribuição deste produto e isso tem feito que o transporte rodoviário fosse excessivamente utilizado na movimentação do etanol desde a usina até o porto. Diante destes aspectos, esta pesquisa busca investigar alternativas intermodais para a movimentação do etanol destinado à exportação, considerando a viabilidade econômica e energética empregada na cadeia logística deste biocombustível. Para isso, foram gerados quatro cenários utilizando os modos rodoviário, ferroviário, dutoviário e hidroviário. Através dos resultados obtidos, o cenário rodo-ferroviário apresentou uma estimativa de custo da ordem de R$ 654 milhões, valor da mesma ordem de grandeza do cenário rodoviário de referência, que foi de R$ 653 milhões. Já os cenários rodo-dutoviário e rodo-hidro-dutoviário, apresentaram custos maiores, respectivamente da ordem de R$ 661 milhões e R$ 674 milhões respectivamente. Em contrapartida, na análise de mínimo consumo energético o cenário rodo-hidro-dutoviário apresentou um gasto de energia da ordem de 533 mil MJ, cerca de 60% a menos que o consumido no cenário rodoviário, estimado em 1,45 milhões de MJ. Para o cenário rodo-dutoviário obteve-se uma estimativa de 680 mil MJ e para o cenário rodo-ferroviário de 764 mil MJ. Em relação ao porto de destino, São Sebastião foi o que apresentou sistematicamente, a melhor opção para quase todos os cenários analisados. / The growing interest in alternative energy sources, especially for those who can mitigate the emissions of gases causing the greenhouse gases (GHG), has made the production of biofuels increased significantly. In this scenario the ethanol produced from cane sugar, has shown advantages over other biofuels, since the energy generated is relatively high when compared with the consumed in the production process. In this context, brazilian exports, especially the South-Central region, try to supply the global requirements through ethanol production surplus in the country. However, there are logistical bottlenecks in the distribution of this product and it has done that the road transport were excessively used in the ethanol transportation from the plant to the port. Considering these aspects, this research seeks to investigate alternatives to the intermodal transportation of ethanol for export, considering the economic viability and energy used in this biofuel chain logistics. For this, four scenarios were generated using road, rail, pipeline and waterway modes. From the results obtained, the road-rail scenario presented an estimated cost of R$ 654 million, the same order of magnitude of road reference scenario, which was R$ 653 million. Already, the scenarios road-pipeline and road-hydro-pipeline, had higher costs respectively in the order of R$ 661 million and R$ 674 million respectively. In contrast, the analysis of minimum energy consumption the road-hydro-pipeline scenario presented an energy expenditure of approximately 533 thousand MJ, about 60% unless consumed in road scenario, estimated at 1.45 million MJ. For road-pipeline scenario yielded an estimate of 680 thousand MJ and the road-rail scenario of 764 thousand MJ. In relation to the port of destination, São Sebastião was systematically presented, the best option for almost all scenarios analyzed.