Inter-Modal Terminals for Freight

The optimal location of terminals and logistic centres is an up-to-date research topic. The first goal of this paper is to outline a method that helps to isolate the best potential locations. The basic idea is to use the flows of commodities and their geographic spreading as input to determine a set of good potential locations for inter-modal terminals on the trans-European networks. This set can then be used in conjunction with already known optimal location models.
Some approaches to solve the optimal location problems will be briefly presented. After that, the method used to obtain a detailed O-D matrix for European international freight traffic will be outlined, in addition to a short explanation on the way the demand can be assigned on a multi-modal freight transportation network. The assigned flow will be used as input to compute a set of potential locations.