ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF DEVELOPING INTERMODAL TRANSPORT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

Transport plays a crucial role in economic and social development and its contribution goes beyond what is normally captured in traditional cost-benefit analyses. Transportation investments can have large long-term economic, social and environmental impacts. The European Commission when developing transport policy, focuses on the intermodal transport, which is seen as a sustainable mobility solution, environmentally friendly and efficient in terms of resources, especially in terms of freight. European transport policies promote co-modality - combining different modes for a single supply chain - as a solution to the adverse effects of transport: pollution, traffic congestion, energy consumption. Intermodal transport is found to be consistently cheaper than all-road solutions, and its external costs significantly lower, thereby confirming the high potential of intermodal transport in increasing the sustainability of the transport sector. So, freight intermodality is increasingly considered as major potential contributor to solving the sustainability problems of the European transport sector. This paper addresses the pricing issues specifically related to intermodal transport. The focus in on the main economical advantages of developing intermodal transport, but also on the usage limits brought by particularities of transport modes. Special attention is given to intermodal transfer terminals with solutions for activity efficiency increase, with major implications on the quality and cost of transportation. The theme discussed in this paper is of great importance, many authors and specialists developed it in their studies. Some names are needed to be mentioned: Todd Litman, Dr. Yuri V. Yevdokimov, John J. Coyle, Kenneth D. Boyer and few more. But, a special attention for this subject is paid by the European Commission and its subordinated institutions, that are interested in developing sustainable strategies and promoting concrete solutions for economic efficiency in the transportation field. The methodology used for this subject is based on the statistics data from the official documents and on the research made by the authors of the paper regarding the advantages from the economical point of view derived from the development of intermodal transport. The results we have reached show that the intermodal transportation is rapidly gaining acceptance as an integral component of the systems approach of conducting business in an increasingly competitive and interdependent global economy. The information on this paper have implications on other related fields: social, environmental and even political and the authors brought significant contribution raising the problem of the total costs of investments in the intermodal transport infrastructure and the long-term economical benefits if it.

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