Planning and managing intermodal transportation of hazardous materials with capacity selection and congestion

•We study rail–truck intermodal transportation of hazmat with terminal congestion.•A nonlinear optimization model and a customized RTIM-heuristic are proposed.•Congestion at terminals could result in non-negligible hazmat risk.•Equipment service and utilization rates have a direct bearing on congestion risk.•Shorter delivery times would have a positive bearing on terminal risk.

The current literature in the rail–truck intermodal transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat) domain ignores congestion at intermodal yards. We attempt to close that gap by proposing a bi-objective optimization framework for managing hazmat freight that not only considers congestion at intermodal yards, but also determines the appropriate equipment capacity. The proposed framework, i.e., a non-linear MIP and a multi-objective genetic algorithm based solution methodology, is applied to a realistic size problem instance from existing literature. Our analysis indicates that terminal congestion risk is a significant portion of the network risk; and, that policies and tools involving number of cranes, shorter maximum waiting times, and tighter delivery times could have a positive bearing on risk.