Study of criteria for evaluation of transportation with intermodal transport

Abstract

The present study defines criteria for evaluation of intermodal passenger and freight transportation-integrated railway and road transport (motorail trains and Ro-La trains). This type of transportation improves the efficiency of distribution in the supply chain. Two variants of criteria are studied in the paper - main and extended. The main criteria are divided into four groups: environmental, economic, technological and social. Eleven factors have been examined in the extended criteria: environmental, operating costs, transportation fares, infrastructure charges, duration of transportation, transportation from door to door, duration of transshipment operations, comfort, safety, reliability and stability. The method of multi-criteria analysis Decision Making Trial and the Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method have been applied to analyze the importance and the relations among the criteria. The summarized results of both variants are similar. They show that the economic criteria have the greatest impact. Operating costs are the key factor among the extended variant of criteria. Other criteria of great importance are also duration of transportation and transport from door to door. The defined criteria can be applied for the evaluation, comparison and selection the transportation with different modes of transport.