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Abstract
This paper analyses the effectiveness of policy measures aimed at triggering a modal shift in the freight transport market. The analysis is based on the inventory‐theoretic framework that studies modal choice from a business logistics viewpoint. The crux of the inventory‐theoretic approach lies in the fact that explicit attention is paid to all costs in the supply chain that are affected by the choice of transport mode. After a brief literature review on the inventory‐theoretic framework, the framework is used to calculate the market shares of different freight transport modes for a hypothetical transport market. In a second step, the impact of some policy measures on the market shares of the transport modes is calculated. By way of illustration, the analysis is applied to the market for container transport from a seaport to its hinterland. It is shown that a combination of certain policy measures can lead to significant modal shifts from road transport to intermodal transport.
Acknowledgement
The paper was written within the framework of the research project ‘Business Logistic Costs and Transport Policy: The Role of Inventory Keeping and Delivery Times on Multimodal Choice’. The project was funded by the Fund for Scientific Research of the Flemish Community (Grant No. U/P/TPR/OZF58000). The authors thank drs. Tom Pauwels for help with the programming work. The suggestions and comments of two anonymous referees on an earlier version of the paper are gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.
Notes
1. An increase of the transportation costs of road transport also affects combined rail/road transport and combined barge/road transport because the on‐carriage from the inland terminal to the final destination is performed by truck.
2. There is no specific reason why these particular policy measure combinations are chosen. Table should be seen as an illustration that, for our specific transport market, combinations of certain policy measures can have a significant impact on the modal split.