The paper deals with the development and application of multimodal freight distribution models for Europe, taking into account the deterrent effects of international barriers to trade and transportation. International barriers are quantified for different modes of transport, providing new insight into the status of international relations, relative to domestic levels of the exchange of goods. The models were designed so that their parameters can be estimated using data that are available at present. In principle, these data may originate from different sources, e.g. trade and transport statistics, or traffic counts. Further, the models explicitly account for the heterogeneity of freight transport, freight transport, in terms of variations in both the time-sensitivity of goods as well as the region-specific access and egress costs to rail and inland waterways networks. In a scenario study, the impact of a gradual abolition of international barriers is studied by investigating two ways in which freight flow patterns can be disrupted in the future. One comprises the redistribution of freight flows over origin/destination pairs and modes of transport: the second case also allows for a generation of freight flows as an effect of the decrease of resistance. Both scenarios result in a considerable growth of international transport, with a slight increase in the share of rail transport.
Abstract