Optimal rail-road container terminal locations on the European network

The European transport policy has focused on sustainable transport solutions, among which intermodal transport is a key player. However, its efficiency is strongly dependent on the location of the container terminals. In this paper, a set of estimated potential locations is used as input for an iterative procedure based on the p-hub median problem that takes the variation in trans-shipment costs according to the number of trans-shipped containers into account. The final results are the optimal locations for European transfer terminals embedded in a hub-and-spoke network.