Positioning intermodal terminals optimally along a railway line using the train differential equation of motion

Energy efficiency is a key sustainability factor in every mode of transport and railway transport poses no exception. As the share of intermodal freight is increasing, the investment interest in construction of new intermodal terminals is also high. The locations of newly built terminals are to be properly researched and justified prior to construction. This paper presents a method for determining an optimal location for the construction of new intermodal terminals along a given railway line with the block train running costs as the target function. The proposed method utilizes a numerical algorithm for solving the differential equation of motion of a block train with the total energy cost per run of the block train as the output. Adequate locations for the new terminals are then highlighted through an analysis of the algorithm’s output space along the railway line length.