Transshipment Equipments for Road-Rail Intermodal Transport

Abstract

Due to the large external costs of road transport, many developed countries have begun to shift the balance between road and rail transport, i.e. enhance the proportion of railway in the transport sector, especially in freight transport. The paper firstly analyzes the necessity of such balance shift, which requires the development of road-rail intermodal transport. Then, the paper focuses on the issue of transshipment equipments to solve the obstacles of road-rail intermodal transport, whose analysis includes both the drawbacks of traditional vertical transshipment equipments and the advantages of innovative horizontal transshipment equipments. Finally, the conclusions are drawn and further suggestions are suggested.