Unpredictable events such as accidents and storms, which occur more frequently due to climate change, cause considerable economic damage in continental transport chains. Intermodal transport chains such as Combined Rroad/Rail Freight Transport (CT) are particularly sensitive to such disruptions due to their complexity. Shippers, carriers and freight forwarders are forced to reroute their shipments to alternative routes to the nearest transshipment point or to the customer.

This not only leads to high follow-up costs, but also poses considerable challenges for transportation planning. Until now, the players have lacked sufficient preparation for such unforeseeable events. As sustainable modes of transport such as CT are becoming increasingly important in the context of climate targets, a resilient transport chain will become more and more important in the future in order to be able to react appropriately and be prepared.

SME freight forwarders in particular have difficulties carrying out comprehensive resilient planning due to limited resources. Economic losses caused by disruptions therefore hit these companies particularly hard. In addition, they have to react quickly and flexibly, which often leads to the main CT leg being shifted to the road – a development that is undesirable from a social and environmental perspective. It is therefore essential for SME freight forwarders to coordinate their planning with clients, shippers and other players within the intermodal transport chain.

Since the planning periods in rail freight transport are longer than in road transport, it is necessary to examine the tactical and operational planning processes of freight forwarders more closely. At the same time, the planning of CT operators needs to be improved with regard to resilient transport planning, as they play a key role in the rail-bound main leg.

The project aims to capture the current situation and key challenges of the industry through expert interviews in order to derive a basis for resilient planning. The collected data should support decisions on the type and dimensioning of a generic transport network for the Resilient Service Network Design Problem (RSNDP) and enable an agent-based simulation model. This model is used to develop efficient and resilient planning options for SME forwarders and CT operators. Finally, the results will be prepared as recommendations for action for these target groups.