Integrating Air Cargo into Multimodal Transportation Networks: Vision and Practical Relevance of Quattromodal Freight Hubs

One crux of intermodal freight transportation is the ability to tranship goods from one mode of transport (MOT) towards another one. Typically, this is realised in bior trimodal hubs, i.e. hubs connecting two or three different MOT with each other. Talking of intermodal freight transportation these connected MOT are road, rail and/or (inland) navigation. Including air cargo into the range leads to an advancement of hubs towards quattromodal hubs, i.e. hubs combining all four so far mentioned MOT, which – to our best knowledge – literature addresses only poorly so far.