Two-stage approach to the intermodal terminal location problem

• The intermodal terminal location problem (ITLP) is studied.
• Determination of terminals is separated from flow routing in a two-stage approach.
• A matheuristic is proposed to obtain near optimal solutions efficiently.

Multimodal transportation means to transport freight using at least two transportation modes. Intermodal freight transportation, a particular form of multimodal transportation, transports freight in an intermodal container without handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The intermodal terminal location problem involves selecting terminals that constitute an intermodal transportation network and routing freight flows with minimal total transportation and operating costs. Arnold et al. first presented mathematical programming models for the problem. Sörensen et al. recently proposed another model for the problem. However, Lin et al. have shown that the model of Sörensen et al. is complex and time-consuming and therefore developed a modified mixed integer programming model to increase computation efficiency. This study shows that the model of Lin et al. can be further improved by separating the selection of intermodal terminals from the routing of transportation flows. A two-stage programming approach is proposed along with a modified, more efficient matheuristic.