Product Intelligence in Intermodal Transportation: The Dynamic Routing Problem

Abstract

Intermodalism has been recognised as a promising way to efficiently reduce logistics costs and travel times of shipments in today’s freight industry. Further, it has the potential to add resilience to the transportation network by providing options in the case of disruption. However, intermodalism still faces some operational challenges such as the routing of shipments in the intermodal network and the control of these shipments during their transit. In this paper we focus on the dynamic version of the routing problem in intermodal transportation that is the control of a shipment while it moves in the transportation network. We present an approach (based on the so-called “intelligent product” notion) for efficient dynamic routing and discuss its applicability and differences with current practice.