Assessment of policy strategies to develop intermodal services: The case of inland terminals in Germany

Gernot Liedtke and David Guillermo Carrillo Murillo

Transport Policy, 2012, vol. 24, issue C, 168-178

Abstract: The welfare effects of two policies that could promote intermodal services, investment grants for terminal operators and the internalisation of external cost are analysed. For this purpose, a market equilibrium model has been developed, covering the dynamic demand and supply interactions of logistics and transport markets. The emergence or closure of terminals is modelled assuming free market entry and exit, and competition by product differentiation. In a first step, analytical results are presented showing that investment grants for terminal operators could have a negative effect on market efficiency due to a massive entry on the market for terminals. In a second step, a hierarchical choice model mapping the decisions of shippers/forwarders in detail is combined with the market equilibrium model. The combined simulation model is applied to German terminals, and different policy packages are analysed. It can be seen that in markets with high volume, the welfare maximizing policy strategy is the internalisation of external cost only. However, in less developed markets, a combination of both, direct subsidies in form of investment grants and internalisation of external cost, could be indicated. Finally, the implications of the results derived from the model and the empirical analysis of transport policy are identified.

Keywords: Free economic energy; Colloidal-structures; Hinterland terminals; Supply-demand interactions; Investment grants; Internalisation of external costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X12000868
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:24:y:2012:i:c:p:168-178

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2012.06.002

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi

More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().