The Use of Public Railway Transportation Network for Urban Intermodal Logistics in Congested City Centres

The Mega-cities around the world are experiencing a rapid growth demanding more and more services and products in urban areas, which are often very dense and congested. The traditional road-based logistics strategies have been inadequate in dealing with large restricted delivery operations. Challenges arise due to legislation that restricts the travel of trucks inside the city centres, or to the increasing number of medium size vehicles in the streets. This paper shows a new method by comparing two options of delivering products in the city centres, one using traditional road-based delivery, and another with a hub-spoke model using the public railway transit system. Data analysis of the city’s Master Transportation Plan shows a low level of utilization of the public railway transit system, and through this finding, we analysed the inter-modal freight transportation in such urban areas. To cope with transit time and cost, we developed a model, assessing the sensitivity and opportunities by carrying out analysis in a real case study. There is evidence that the model is sensible for the proposed congestion factor in the transit time as it can be a way to improve the service level of the deliveries inside the city centres, decreasing the number of medium sized trucks needed. The results show that it is possible to use inter-modal transportation when the road-based distribution operations suffer from a certain level of congestion in the haulage and last-mile stage.