Management of operational disruptions with support of information is essential to facilitate the shift from road to rail and to ensure efficient hinterland intermodal transport chains. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the operational efficiency effects of information on operational disruption management in hinterland transport with a dry port to facilitate efficient intermodal hinterland transport. For that purpose, a simulation model with five scenarios was developed and applied using empirical data from a real-world case of a hinterland transport chain with a dry port. The results show that the resource utilisation of the trucks that deliver containers from the dry port to the receivers can be increased using the information that supports management of the disruption. Nevertheless, in attempts to increase resource utilisation when managing the disruption, issues arose from efficiency measures that are important for other actors, e.g. the receivers. 

Modern intermodal nodes of the future – Requirements on knowledge and development

The purpose of the project was to compile existing knowledge to analyze the function, design, and organization of intermodal nodes, as well as identify gaps for future research within Trafikverket’s research program and serve as a basis for Trafikverket's strategic work. The project uses both literature reviews and empirical studies through workshops with experts. The project has five main results:

1. Criteria are proposed to define sustainable intermodal nodes aimed at promoting economic, social, and environmental goals for authorities, cargo owners, and carriers. The aim is to identify challenges and areas where nodes can improve their sustainability to avoid sub-optimization.

2. A two-dimensional matrix is proposed to categorize intermodal nodes according to their role in society's goods supply, as well as the local economy and environment.

3. Various organizational forms for nodes are described, including terminals and associated logistics areas that can be owned and managed by public, private, or combined entities.

4. A discussion on how technological innovations such as electrification, digitization, and automation can affect intermodal nodes in the future.

5. Opportunities and needs for further work and research in the field are presented

För att Sverige ska kunna nå målet om att bli ett av världens första fossilfria välfärdsländer krävs en omställning till ett fossilfritt transportsystem såväl som till en cirkulär ekonomi. Sjöfart har potential att matcha de behov som en ökad cirkulär ekonomi ställer och är ett energieffektivt trafikslag. Syftet med rapporten är att förstå hur sjöfart kan nyttjas i ökad utsträckning för att transportera cirkulära produkter och material och hur hamnen kan skapa mervärde i utveckling av cirkulära logistiklösningar. Metoderna som använts är: litteraturstudier, workshops och fallstudier. Rapporten identifierar cirkulära produkter och material med potential att lyfta sig i avfallstrappan och där det är lämpligt att nyttja sjöfart för transport i det cirkulära logistiksystemet. Det handlar om muddermassor, jordmassor, mineralavfall, träavfall, plastavfall, uttjänta däck, uttjänta textilier, sorterade och återvunna textilier, planglas, spillolja och flygaska. Hamnens roll vid hantering av cirkulära material studerades mer specifikt för massor, dissolvingmassa baserad på återvunna textilier, matrester och etanol. Det blev tydligt att hamnen kan skapa värde i form av lagring, konsolidering, lossning och lastning av containrar samt vara en logistiknod som erbjuder omlastningsmöjligheter mellan olika trafikslag. Hamnen känner till de lokala förutsättningarna för effektiva logistikupplägg och är en central kugge i nya aktörsnätverk. Rapporten redovisar även en beskrivning av två cirkulära logistiklösningar med involvering av sjöfart som utvecklats och utvärderats under projektet. Det handlar dels om en demonstration av en sjötransport med kalkstabiliserad lera, dels om framtagning av beslutsunderlag för investering av en tilltänkt sorteringsmaskin av planglas i vilket logistikupplägg från ett antal olika hamnar förslogs och miljöberäkningar genomfördes.

To meet increased freight flows through maritime ports, a high level of resource utilisation in hinterland transport is of crucial importance. However, various perspectives on resource utilisation create issues with use of information for operational decisions in port hinterland. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of information related to resource utilisation for operational planning in port hinterland freight transport to facilitate its improvement. The study is case-based, and the data is collected through semi-structured interviews, visual observations, and company documents. The findings are analysed with a framework built from literature emphasising different resource utilisation perspectives and the use of information in road freight transport chain decisions. The findings show that the use of information on resource utilisation in operational freight transport decisions in the port hinterland transport system is limited and lacks a complete system overview. Instead of the information on measured parameters, different types of estimates of efficiency parameters (including resource utilisation) are commonly used for operational planning decisions. The information about the measured indicators has to be combined with other information to obtain an efficient level of resource utilisation; otherwise, it could generate incorrect assumptions regarding utilisation. The paper contributes to the topic of operational freight transport planning by describing the use of information on resource utilisation. 

Intermodal solutions, compared to the use of only road, in port hinterland transport involve numerous actors and activities that increase operational uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of information, through an information processing perspective, for operational coordination in supporting operational disruption management in intermodal hinterland transport. A qualitative case study approach is adopted to obtain an in-depth understanding of operational coordination in a hinterland transport system. The results provide insights into how the actors use information processing for coordination to influence the mitigation of the impact from operational disruptions. The paper supports managers in improving disruption management by understand the processing of real-time information in the coordination for intermodal hinterland transport solutions. This paper provides input for operational disruptions using information for coordination on a day-to-day basis via an information processing perspective in contrast to the predominant coordination at a strategic level in the literature.

This thesis focuses on the recovery phase after operational disruptions in intermodal freight transport, which is a vital aspect of mitigating impacts such as late deliveries and thus achieving high operational efficiency. Intermodal freight transport is influenced by the ongoing development of information and communication technologies. Real-time information from these technologies has been shown useful for managing disruptions at the operational level. Previous research on intermodal freight transport has focused on the effects of actions enabled by real-time information, which has generated a lack of understanding the importance of real-time information concerning the process that result in these actions, such as using real-time information to manage operational disruptions. In this thesis, the process of managing disruptions in the recovery phase by using real-time information to detect a disruption, predict its impacts and take suitable action is termed disruption management. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of the importance of real-time information for disruption management in intermodal freight transport.   This thesis draws from a compilation of five studies conducted to examine various aspects of real-time information used during the recovery phase in different intermodal freight transport settings. The studies involved applying various methods used in qualitative case studies, such as interviews, observations, and a focus group, as well as a quantitative study involving discrete event simulation. The main results are as follows. First, the results identified how real-time information supports the phases of disruption management (i.e., detection, prediction and action) depending on different factors of real-time information. Second, connections between operational coordination regarding information and buffers are discussed in terms of how they influence the real-time information used for disruption management. Last, an investigation of the efficiency effects was made with different scenarios for real-time information regarding prediction of impact. Through these results, the thesis provides insights into the importance of real-time information for disruption management and theoretical contributions to intermodal freight transport by conceptualising the role of real-time information for disruption management at the operational level and its effects. The detailed descriptions of real-time information for recovery provides practical contributions for transport managers to understand and evaluate their processes at the recovery phase.

In this study, the operational management of disruptions is investigated in transport chains with a focus on phases after disruptions have occurred. Instead of focusing on strategies mitigating risk before disruption occurs this paper considers the recovery phase of a disruption at operational level. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights for operational disruption management to achieve improved decision support for the recovery phase. A qualitative method of a case study is used in this paper for the transport around a distribution centre at a FMCG company in Sweden with data collected from semi-structured interviews and observations. The analysis of the findings proposes different types of detection in the recovery phase, which give insights for how to perform early recovery actions. The study contributes to disruption management in transport chains through insights on how to achieve early recovery actions by combining the different detection types with the phases of prediction and action. Instead of focusing on strategies mitigating risk before disruption occurs this paper considers the recovery phase of a disruption at operational level. This is shown to be important to understand reactive or proactive actions in the recovery phase. Transport managers can use the proposed detection types in this paper to detect disruptions in order to respond to disruptions earlier instead of developing competences of fire-fighting for occurred impacts

Port hinterland transport literature has previously taken mainly a port perspective of operational disruption, for example delays or congestion, and as such lacks understanding of how real-time information can contribute to management of operational disruption outside the port. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to explore real-time information for operational disruption management in road hinterland transport. A qualitative single case study approach is adopted at a logistics service provider responsible for road hinterland transport. The findings show improvement potential in disruption management by applying real-time information. Mainly issues related to the detection of disruption are highlighted to generate insufficiencies for the operational disruption management. Furthermore, the focus of real-time information for the impact on goods flow, rather than disruptions in the surrounding environment of transport operations, was found to limit disruption management. The paper intends to contribute to the hinterland transport literature by broadening the understanding for management of operational disruption through use of real-time information.

This thesis focuses on the management of disruption in freight transport. The management of disruption is of importance to achieve planned efficiency in the transport system by mitigating or avoiding the impacts of disruptions, such as late arrivals of deliveries. The transport system is influenced by the ongoing development of information and communication technologies, which makes real-time information related to the transport operations available. This information has been shown to be useful for disruption management and has created possibilities for a shift towards more autonomous transport systems. This thesis investigates the real-time disruption management, as the recovery phase of disruption at the operational level, using relevant information after a disruption has occurred. The studied literature has mainly considered this phase to be reactive and focused on recovery strategies as proactive actions before disruptions occur. This thesis considers proactive recovery actions as made after a disruption but before it impacts the transport chain. These kinds of recovery actions provide less impact from disruptions on the freight transport system than reactive recovery actions made after the impact has occurred do. The purpose of this research is to investigate real-time disruption management in freight transport, in order to generate possibilities for proactive recovery actions. Two cases of real-time disruption management have been investigated in this thesis, in three different studies. Each study examined different aspects regarding detection of disruptions, of what is detected, how it is detected and where in the transport system it is detected, influence on the initiation of real-time disruption management. The results from the performed studies point towards the importance of that detecting different objects of a disruption, which is further influenced by how and where in the system the detection is made. Furthermore, these insights into the detection phase are connected to the other phases for real-time disruption management, prediction and action, in order to state the possibilities of generating proactive recovery actions. In contrast to the developed literature of strategic recovery strategies, this thesis establishes a detailed description of the viewpoint of real-time management of disruptions. As the identified objects for detection in this research are shown to be represented by different information, it is valuable for the development of disruption management to match future autonomous parts of the transport system and develop decision support systems accordingly. Furthermore, the research contributes with two dimensions in which recovery actions can be viewed as proactive. This is generated either with real-time disruption management performed after impact but before impact on the transport system or after the impact on transport system but before impact on upcoming operations. The practical contribution includes concepts revolving around real-time disruption management, which can be used for an outline for needed information in order to generate possibilities for proactive recovery actions.