The containerization of wastes, as with other freight, offers opportunities for bulking consignments on unit loads and also utilizing rail-road inter-modal structures. Thus containerization reduces the load of wastes on all road itineraries. To assess the feasibility of these networks design techniques are required to evaluate the transshipment interface at the terminal facility and the coordination of the hub network. These techniques differ from the conventional transshipment problem of operations research as they need to consider terminal topological complexity and inter-temporal storage characteristic of hubs in any flow allocation. This paper investigates a simulation approach to determine the physical realisability of these systems which can then act as a basis for non-linear node impedances for scheduling techniques. The figures of merit that come from such a synthesis, include a time composition for freight production and a measure of risk capacity trade offs with alternate terminal designs and their distributed function. A broader insight is the trade-off between the perceived sustainability goal of the proximity principle and the perceived logistical benefit of postponement. A case study of the Collex inter-modal waste facility at Clyde in Sydney with novel network arrangements is outlined. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see IRRD abstract no. E216410.
Samenvatting