In order to meet emission targets for 2050 in Europe transport needs to be executed more 2 efficiently. A promising way to make transport more efficient is synchromodal transport. When the 3 service provider has more flexibility to arrange transport, the utilization and use of intermodal transport, 4 such as rail, can be increased and emissions per unit transported are reduced. Synchromodal transport 5 requires a large change in way of working for shippers and logistics service providers that may seem 6 insurmountable. In this article a maturity model is developed for synchromodal transport that breaks this 7 large change down into several stages that companies go through when developing synchromodal 8 transport. In a case study, executed for several companies situated in Northwestern Europe the maturity 9 model is applied in practice to identify enablers and inhibitors of synchromodal transport.@en

Container port competitiveness is generally conceptualized as being driven by straightforward criteria, such as port costs, handling efficiency, hinterland connectivity, and the quality of infrastructure and services. Synchromodal freight transport service is an emerging and developing concept of freight transport operations, as shippers and carriers consider hinterland, short-sea, and deep-sea connectivity as major port choice criteria to run these port operations smoothly. Although scientists claim that synchromodality is a promising concept with a lot of potential advantages synchromodal transport is currently implemented at limited scale. In this study a survey is carried out among 30 different small/medium enterprises (SMEs) in the field of port logistics to identify the success/fail factors of using synchromodal transport in practice. Companies are classified as experienced or inexperienced users of synchromodal transport. The experienced users have a stronger attention to the operational factors of synchromodal transport. Their experiences with flexibility, availability of infrastructure, damage-control and specific data sharing seems to be determining factors in their usage of synchromodal transport. The non-experienced companies are hindered by ignorance of synchromodality and focus on issues such as lack of knowledge, how to start knowledge, lack of transparency and complexity of synchromodal transport. Our findings suggest that to increase the share of synchromodal transport it is necessary that companies and policy makers who want to encourage the use of synchromodal transport should make different action plans considering the level of experience of the enterprises.@en

This article shows the results of our study to determine the general level of synchromodal maturity for shippers and logistics service providers operating in The Netherlands and Belgium. A questionnaire was used to assess the maturity of synchromodal transport for 41. This research extends the literature by applying the model to a broader setting. Although 41 companies provide some good insight on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), generalization cannot be made on the findings. In this study most results were obtained for logistics service providers and shippers. It was observed that shippers in general are more mature in synchromodal transport, except for decision-making power. The higher score for data exchange for shippers seems to suggest that vertical collaboration is strongly supported by data exchange. Our study shows that most companies are more mature in the areas of decision-making power and transport planning. On the other hand, transport execution, pricing and type of relationships are lagging. The lagging of transport execution could be explained by absence of a frequent and dense intermodal transport network. Next to that, collaboration between different parties is critical for successful implementation of synchromodality. Comparing the scores between companies within the Netherlands and Belgium similar patterns can be observed when comparing shippers and logistics service providers. Future research will focus on further benchmarking the maturity levels of synchromodality in Europe. @en

Dit artikel richt zich op de ontwikkeling van een onderzoeksagenda voor Greenining Corridors waarin het verduurzamen van achterlandverbindingen centraal staat. Het verduurzamen van de corridors wordt breed ingestoken langs een drietal thema’s (1) betere benutting van capaciteit; (2) schone, veilige en autonome modaliteiten; (3) Digitalisering in de toeleveringsketen. De totstandkoming van de onderzoeksagenda binnen de thema’s heeft plaatsgevonden door triangulatie van literatuuronderzoek en discussie met experts uit het Greening Corridor consortium. Onder vergroening van achterlandcorridors wordt verstaan duurzame logistieke corridors te ontwikkelen en te bevorderen zodanig dat de uitstoot van CO2 en andere schadelijke stoffen uit de logistieke sector drastisch verminderd wordt (waar mogelijk naar nul uitstoot) door toepassing van nieuwe technologieën gericht op de achterlandverbindingen van North Sea Port, Rotterdam, Amsterdam en Antwerpen. Het onderzoek richt zich centraal op 3 thema's: (1) betere benutting van capaciteit; (2) schone, veilige en autonome modaliteiten; (3) Digitalisering in de toeleveringsketen.@en

Dit artikel richt zich op de ontwikkeling van een onderzoeksagenda voor Greenining Corridors waarin het verduurzamen van achterlandverbindingen centraal staat. Het verduurzamen van de corridors wordt breed ingestoken langs een drietal thema’s (1) betere benutting van capaciteit; (2) schone, veilige en autonome modaliteiten; (3) Digitalisering in de toeleveringsketen. De totstandkoming van de onderzoeksagenda binnen de thema’s heeft plaatsgevonden door triangulatie van literatuuronderzoek en discussie met experts uit het Greening Corridor consortium. Onder vergroening van achterlandcorridors wordt verstaan duurzame logistieke corridors te ontwikkelen en te bevorderen zodanig dat de uitstoot van CO2 en andere schadelijke stoffen uit de logistieke sector drastisch verminderd wordt (waar mogelijk naar nul uitstoot) door toepassing van nieuwe technologieën gericht op de achterlandverbindingen van North Sea Port, Rotterdam, Amsterdam en Antwerpen. Het onderzoek richt zich centraal op 3 thema's: (1) betere benutting van capaciteit; (2) schone, veilige en autonome modaliteiten; (3) Digitalisering in de toeleveringsketen.@en

Pressure on more sustainable transport and increased congestion provide opportunities for intermodal transport, but it suffers from unreliable transport times due to a lack of coordination at the operational level. Synchromodal transport can mitigate this effect by taking an integral perspective. It appears that the majority of research to date has focused on the technical and operational challenges of synchromodal transport such as planning and supporting IT systems and platforms. In this article, a synchromodal maturity model has been applied to 41 cases to gauge the current state of synchromodal transport from a complete perspective. @en