Strategies to achieve a quality leap in intermodal rail or barge transportation

This article focuses on innovation strategies for networks and node exchange. The articles objective is: to indicate by means of an overview of innovation strategies that there still is a large range of possibilities to substantially improve the efficiency of intermodal operations; to point out the size of cost-quality advantages for one innovative strategy, namely that of the so-called complex bundling of flows and the exchange of load units by means of a new generation of terminals. The major conclusion is that innovative strategies may allow one to achieve substantial cost-quality improvements, but there still some efforts are required to implement the innovative concepts; efforts in terms of the finishing touch on the area of technology, and in terms of organising complex operations, which will satisfy all network actors/functions and their clients.