Can Innovations in Rail Freight Transhipment Be Successful?

Abstract

The central place of transhipment in rail transport solutions and the lack of successful innovations is the focus in this paper. Based on a questionnaire and interviews, several conclusions can be drawn. First, the respondents value the product characteristics of the different innovations as neutral. However, there appear to be a number of ways to make the innovations more attractive (e.g. reduce uncertainty/risks, increase the compatibility and decrease the complexity). Second, the respondents value the user requirements of the innovations concerned as neutral. However, several different opportunities can be identified to make the innovations more attractive on the user requirements side (e.g. flexibility). Third, concerning the user requirements, the costs of the innovations are perceived as high. This probably is one of the major barriers to the successful adoption of the innovations in the rail transhipment market. In this market, costs are very important and cannot always be recovered through charging higher prices. A last conclusion is that user requirements can be analysed from two points of view: first, the user of the innovation is the terminal operator and the innovation must meet his criteria; and second, the actual user is the rail transport company (and ultimately the shipper of the freight). The innovations are then evaluated on their increase in performance for the total intermodal transport solution.

Acknowledgement

The authors thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and advice on an earlier version of this paper.