Title: Potential improvements for access management in intermodal freight terminals: designing and testing a service for small road haulers

Authors: Stefan Jacobsson

Addresses: Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Vera Sandbergs allé 8, SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden

Abstract: To lower the environmental impact in freight transportation, road haulage activities need to be drastically improved. Road haulage, such as when road haulers access intermodal freight terminals, can be improved by using different access management services. The purpose of this paper is to design an access management service and test it in real-life situations to potentially improve road haulage activities. This case study was conducted through two workshops, one telephone group meeting, three semi-structured interviews, 25 observations and interviews with truck drivers, and 198 hours of time measurements of road haulage activities. The main result is an information exchange framework on which the service is based. It categorises the most relevant information attributes (e.g., container status and queuing status) and provides guidance for how these are exchanged in real time depending on the type of intermodal freight terminal accessed and whether the containers are exported or imported. By exchanging these attributes, which have never been exchanged in real time, the two most significant unnecessary road haulage activities (waiting and administration times) may be reduced and, in turn, lead to reduced environmental impact.

Keywords: access management; potential improvements; design; test; road haulage activities; intermodal freight terminals; services; real-time information exchange; relevant information attributes; activities; real-life; case study; environmental impact.

DOI: 10.1504/WRITR.2019.102369

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2019 Vol.8 No.3, pp.245 - 264

Received: 23 Aug 2018
Accepted: 28 Nov 2018
Published online: 23 Sep 2019 *

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