Sustainability of the European freight transport system: Evaluation of innovative bundling networks

Innovative freight bundling networks have emerged in the European freight transport system during the past decade and a half. This paper aims to evaluate these networks with respect to a given set of evaluating attributes (criteria). The objective is to identify the network with 'promising' or 'preferable' configuration and performance, which will be competitive to road haulage under given circumstances. A set of different cases of rail-based innovative bundling networks represents the evaluation alternatives. The main indicators of the network demand, supply, time and cost performances have been used as the attributes (evaluation criteria). The Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) multi-criteria method has been applied to select the 'promising' or 'preferable' bundling network under given circumstances. The outcomes indicate that, generally, a 'preferable' configuration of the rail-based bundling networks should consist of a great number of nodes (inter-modal terminals) and routes covering a wide spectrum of delivery distances. In addition, both a high frequency of regular services and standardised delivery time of loading units should be provided.