Hinterland Network Design: The Extended Gate

The optimal design of freight transport networks has received a lot of attention from the academic world over the years. The contributions in the field can be assigned to the greater class of problems on Network Design. On the other hand, the exclusive design of intermodal port-hinterland container transport networks has not grasped the attention of the academic world as much as it has of the business world. Business examples implementing the Extended Gate and Dryport concepts are gaining momentum, while academic contributions to support their implementation are limited since some of the main assumptions under the usual network design formulations do not hold under the implementation of such concepts. In this research project we look to the dryport and extended gate concepts while trying to identify the main considerations for their quantitative modeling. A gap in literature that should be filled has been identified and a quantitative model representing the extended gate operator perspective in network design is presented and discussed. Last, a solution approach for this problem and some initial results are discussed.