Digitalization and Automation in Intermodal Freight Transport and Their Potential Application for Low-Income Countries

This paper presents an assessment of enabling technologies in intermodal freight transport. It first identifies the technologies used in intermodal freight transport globally using a systematic literature review. Then, it characterizes intermodal freight transport in the context of low-income countries to assess the potential application of digitalization and automation for the countries. Countries with a per capita gross national income (GNI) lower than $1025 are categorized as low-income countries. To achieve the objectives, a review was undertaken of 147 published articles from Scopus, Web of Science, and Transport Research International Documentation (TRID). Furthermore, distinctions of intermodal transport in low-income countries were also characterized using gray literature. A number of enabling technologies applied at components of intermodal transport were identified. The results demonstrated that several enabling technologies such as wireless communication technology, sensors, positioning technology, and web-based platforms are highly utilized in intermodal freight transport globally. In contrast, electronic data interchange (EDI), wireless communication technologies, and web-based platforms also have potential applications in low-income countries, and their adoption should be studied further.

Organization of suburban communication in the conditions of repair work on the railway section

The organization of transport services for suburban routes during the periods of providing "windows" should be based on logistics approaches and the principle of maximum use of the possibilities of railway transport for the development of a given and predicted passenger traffic. Intermodal transport is the most progressive and efficient method of passenger transportation, which is most convenient and more understandable to a person from the point of view of the organization-the responsibility of one carrier for the entire transport process on the route.

Strategic Planning and Economic Assessment of Development of Intermodal Transport Infrastructure

The authors set the goals: to assess the socio-economic importance of construction of intermodal transport infrastructure in the Russian Federation in modern conditions, to analyse the degree of development of issues of assessing the economic efficiency of intermodal aspects. To achieve these objectives, the content of modern strategic documents (such as the Comprehensive Plan for Modernization and Expansion o f Trunk Infrastructure, the Long-term Development Program of JSC Russian Railways until 2025, the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, etc.), as well as the dynamics of container traffic volumes and results in construction of new and modernization of existing intermodal transport infrastructure were analysed. Based on this, a conclusion was made about relevance, importance, and prospects of development of intermodal transport infrastructure for both passenger and freight transportation.The degree of elaboration of issues of assessing the economic efficiency of intermodal aspects is analysed, while the historical retrospective of evolution of methods for its assessment within the framework of state or sectoral methodological guidelines adopted in the former USSR and the Russian Federation is considered. When analysing approaches to assessing economic efficiency inherent in a planned economic model, several effects from improvements associated with the development of transport infrastructure and organisation of operation are described. Against this background, the authors reveal the difference between former and new approaches, characteristic of the modern market economy.Through analysis and synthesis, conclusions were drawn for each part of the study. In the final part, using a dialectical approach, the results obtained are compared. Based on this, conclusions were made on the correlation between the importance of building an intermodal transport infrastructure, the degree of development of issues of assessing the economic efficiency of intermodal aspects and the prospects for development of this research area.

Robust maritime supply chains

Container terminals are an important interface in the maritime supply chain, as they connect the geographically localized last mile to the customer and the shipping company. Its handling efficiency makes a decisive contribution to the fact that the maritime supply chain functions in a high-performance way. The aim of this article is to identify and describe potential optimization potentials in operational operation for container terminals. The focus is on the interfaces to the most important stakeholders of the container terminal, i.e., water-side handling, yard, and intermodal transport. For this purpose, the method of qualitative content analysis as outlined by Mayring was used. The software MaxQDA was used to code the given literature and analyze its content. In the given literature 12 categories were identified and 786 codes and subcodes were analyzed. The basic barriers to optimization of container terminals have been identified by this study.