Reducing intermodal transportation impacts on society and environment by path selection: a multiobjective shortest path approach

There is no doubt that the transport sector contributes significantly to the overall energy consumption and emission of greenhouse gases. The transportation systems are increasingly related to environmental problems. The present contribution aims to take into account the direct and indirect impacts of transportation systems whatsoever on the environment or on the society. This paper proposes the reduction of environmental and societal impacts of intermodal freight by using multiobjective shortest path approach. A novel algorithm called Multiobjective Ant colony Algorithm for Multiobjective Shortest Path Problem (MOSPACO) is presented. This algorithm aims to help decision makers to choose a path with less environmental impacts in an intermodal network. The ant colony optimization metaheuristic is used to choose the ‘best’ path in the network, which means the path with the best compromise economy/environment. A numerical analysis is then presented based on a network build using real geographical data and the obtained non-dominated solutions are analyzed.