Lowest Cost Intermodal Rail Freight Transport Bundling Networks: Conceptual Structuring and Identification

In this paper, which focuses on intermodal rail freight networks, we analyse the trends of bundling innovation, and discuss the operational mechanisms in bundling networks and their quantitative impact for the number of train routes, service frequency, the size of trainloads, and required network transport volume. Furthermore we identify which bundling types lead to large trainloads and lowest costs, given certain network transport volumes and certain service frequency requirements. On the basis of a large-scale comparison of bundling networks with large trainloads and ones with lowest costs we conclude, that a large trainload is a good first indicator for lowest cost network: if an intermodal basic bundling network has the largest technically allowed trainload and this is larger than of competing bundling types, the envisaged network is likely to also have the lowest network costs