Traffic in Intermodal Logistic Hubs - shedding light on the blind spot

Abstract

Intermodal Logistic Hubs attract significant amounts of different kinds of traffic. Trucks deliver and pick up goods, containers have to be moved, service vehicles, heavy vehicles, and sometimes public roads cross the site. The “organic growth” of these facilities and the multitude of involved parties frequently result in inefficient and insufficient traffic infrastructure, unnecessary negative environmental impacts, and high costs for stakeholders. To optimize infrastructure and operation of these hubs the requirements of the different stakeholders, service times at facilities, origins and destinations of vehicles, their routes and speeds, etc. have to be known – which they are often not. This article scrutinizes the mentioned issues and outlines the potential of shedding light on these issues for the example of the Port of Hamburg (Germany). In the focus is the methodology used to analyze the traffic in such an Intermodal Logistic Hub covering a land area of 43 km² and being entered and left by more than 120,000 vehicles every day. Expert and street side interviews, vehicle tracking, and screenline traffic counts have been combined to answer questions on bottlenecks, emission black spots, and viability of electric vehicles. This combination of traditional and modern survey techniques proved to provide a wealth of new information which allows for improved processes and procedures leading to increased turnover of goods with a given infrastructure and with less negative impacts. The article is of particular interest for Intermodal Logistic Hubs in Europe with often organically grown structures, unlike U.S. hubs with their more restrictive access.