Under the pressing need for increasing sustainability of freight transport, the rail sector faces challenges in competing with its road counterpart which can be contributed to lower flexibility and reliability. To overcome these challenges, intermodal rail freight systems should undergo a transformative evolution to enhance flexibility and seamlessly integrate with broader mobility services. Crucial to the success of any such innovative solution is integration with the existing railway infrastructure. This study explores the concept of modular vehicles (MV s) in rail systems, focusing particularly on the innovative 'Pod' system introduced in the Pods4Rail project. It introduces a framework for Pods scheduling on the railway network, incorporating an overlap-level-based platooning. Experiments show that implementing this system can significantly reduce the makespan and optimize railway capacity utilization, especially when dealing with larger problem sizes.

Large-scale electrification of heavy-duty road freight faces challenges including scarcity of charging infrastructure and high battery costs. Dynamic charging could help overcome these challenges by enabling trucks to charge while driving. Important additional benefits for carriers related to lower required sizes and longer lifetimes of batteries could justify the required investments. The study investigates the optimal configuration of network sections to be electrified so that the balance between costs and benefits turns out positive. A case study for a highway network spanning 4 countries in Europe suggests that dynamic charging can lead to a significant reduction in overall transport system costs, up to very large network sizes. The study supports the decision-making of policymakers and road authorities by providing new insights into the costs and benefits of dynamic charging networks, and simultaneously considering the perspectives of investors and users.

This paper explores the enhancement of rail-based, intermodal freight transport systems through the integration of modular vehicles (MVs), aiming to boost the flexibility of this form of transport and its integration into the mobility-as-a-service framework. This study specifically addresses a specific variant of the Pickup and Delivery Problem (PDP) tailored to railway logistics, by developing mathematical models for the Pickup and Delivery Modular Vehicle Routing Problem (PDMVRP) with platooning. This model focuses on the operational challenges associated with routing and platooning of MVs on the railways. A case study conducted within a railway context assesses the efficacy of our model, demonstrating its potential to reduce transportation costs and improve railway capacity utilization, thereby advancing modular vehicle operations in railway environments.