Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Assignment of Freight Traffic in a Large-scale Intermodal Network under Uncertainty

Journal Article · · Highlights of Sustainability
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  2. Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (United States)
  3. South Carolina Department of Transportation, Columbia, SC (United States)

This paper presents a methodology for freight traffic assignment in a large-scale road-rail intermodal network under uncertainty. Network uncertainties caused by natural disasters have dramatically increased in recent years. Several of these disasters (e.g., Hurricane Sandy, Mississippi River Flooding, and Hurricane Harvey) severely disrupted the U.S. freight transportation network, and consequently, the supply chain. To account for these network uncertainties, a stochastic freight traffic assignment model is formulated. An algorithmic framework, involving the sample average approximation and gradient projection algorithm, is proposed to solve this challenging problem. The developed methodology is tested on the U.S. intermodal network with freight flow data from the Freight Analysis Framework. The experiments consider three types of natural disasters that have different risks and impacts on transportation networks: earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods. It is found that for all disaster scenarios, freight ton-miles are higher compared to the base case without uncertainty. The increase in freight ton-miles is the highest under the flooding scenario; this is because there are more states in the flood-risk areas, and they are scattered throughout the U.S.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
2267631
Journal Information:
Highlights of Sustainability, Journal Name: Highlights of Sustainability Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 3; ISSN 2696-628X
Publisher:
Highlights of ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (32)

A Decision Method for Disruption Management Problems in Intermodal Freight Transport book January 2011
Managing rail-truck intermodal transportation for hazardous materials with random yard disruptions journal July 2020
Reliable Routing of Road-Rail Intermodal Freight under Uncertainty journal January 2019
Green road–rail intermodal routing problem with improved pickup and delivery services integrating truck departure time planning under uncertainty: an interactive fuzzy programming approach journal December 2021
Best routes selection in international intermodal networks journal September 2008
Measuring and maximizing resilience of freight transportation networks journal July 2012
A stochastic programming approach for supply chain network design under uncertainty journal November 2005
Multimodal freight transportation planning: A literature review journal February 2014
Models and algorithms for the design of survivable multicommodity flow networks with general failure scenarios journal December 2008
Reliability of the intermodal transport network under disrupted conditions in the rail freight transport journal September 2022
Modelling a rail/road intermodal transportation system journal May 2004
Vulnerability assessment and re-routing of freight trains under disruptions: A coal supply chain network application journal November 2014
Convergence of Traffic Assignments: How Much is Enough? journal January 2004
Estimating Extreme Event Resilience of Rail–Truck Intermodal Freight Networks: Methods, Models, and Case Study Application journal June 2022
Seismic Resilience of Intermodal Freight Transportation Networks with Ties to Economic Impact Modeling conference November 2022
A strategic model of freight operations for rail transportation systems journal August 2004
Simulation-based optimization—convergence analysis and statistical inference journal January 1996
Multimodal Capacitated Hub Location Problems with Multi-Commodities: An Application in Freight Transport journal January 2020
Shipper–Carrier Dynamic Freight Assignment Model Using a Variational Inequality Approach journal January 2006
Investment Selection Model for Multicommodity Multimodal Transportation Networks journal January 1996
Designing Multimodal Freight Transport Networks: A Heuristic Approach and Applications journal May 2009
Resilience: An Indicator of Recovery Capability in Intermodal Freight Transport journal February 2012
A Tactical Planning Model for Rail Freight Transportation journal May 1984
A Sequential Shipper-Carrier Network Model for Predicting Freight Flows journal May 1986
A Multimode Multiproduct Network Assignment Model for Strategic Planning of Freight Flows journal February 1990
Dynamic Network Simulation–Assignment Platform for Multiproduct Intermodal Freight Transportation Analysis
  • Mahmassani, Hani S.; Zhang, Kuilin; Dong, Jing
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2032, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3141/2032-02
journal January 2007
Application and Validation of Dynamic Freight Simulation–Assignment Model to Large-Scale Intermodal Rail Network: Pan-European Case
  • Zhang, Kuilin; Nair, Rahul; Mahmassani, Hani S.
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2066, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3141/2066-02
journal January 2008
Assignment of Freight Shipment Demand in Congested Rail Networks
  • Hwang, Taesung; Ouyang, Yanfeng
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2448, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3141/2448-05
journal January 2014
Freight Traffic Assignment Methodology for Large-Scale Road–Rail Intermodal Networks
  • Uddin, M. Majbah; Huynh, Nathan
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2477, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3141/2477-06
journal January 2015
Routing Model for Multicommodity Freight in an Intermodal Network Under Disruptions
  • Uddin, M. Majbah; Huynh, Nathan
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2548, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3141/2548-09
journal January 2016
Assessing Energy, Environmental, and Economic Tradeoffs in Intermodal Freight Transportation journal August 2008
Model for Collaboration among Carriers to Reduce Empty Container Truck Trips journal July 2020

Similar Records

Using geographic information science to evaluate legal restrictions on freight transportation routing in disruptive scenarios
Journal Article · Thu Dec 22 23:00:00 EST 2016 · International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection · OSTI ID:1360019

Development of analytic intermodal freight networks for use within a GIS
Conference · Thu May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1997 · OSTI ID:474894

Methodology for Estimating ton-Miles of Goods Movements for U.S. Freight Mulitimodal Network System
Conference · Mon Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2012 · OSTI ID:1092254