Pricing Problems in Intermodal Freight Transport: Research Overview and Prospects

Christine Tawfik and Sabine Limbourg
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Christine Tawfik: QuantOM, HEC Management School, University of Liege, B-4000 Liege, Belgium
Sabine Limbourg: QuantOM, HEC Management School, University of Liege, B-4000 Liege, Belgium

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-22

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to consider the topic of pricing decisions in the context of intermodal transport as a subject of significant influence on intermodality’s success and the move towards environment friendly modes to bring about a European sustainable transport system. We review the state of research in intermodal pricing from an Operational Research (OR) perspective as a subject with a vital link to energy consumption and sustainability assessment. In particular, we study freight transport within a revenue-maximizing perspective. Driven by the political incentives to enhance its challenged market position, we direct our discussion to the particular gap in optimization approaches that tackle service prices as explicit tactical decisions from the carriers’ point of view. A suggestion to utilize the bilevel programming framework in the present context is put forward, as well as an account of its widely successful application to similar hierarchical decision schemes. Different approaches to express the shippers’ behaviour—the potential intermodal transport customers—within the lower level problem are proposed, along with the modelling implications of different possible objectives as well as the multimodal network structures.

Keywords: intermodal transport; sustainable freight transport; pricing problems; bilevel programming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:9:p:3341-:d:170664

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