Fundamental Analyses for Constructing Road-rail Intermodal Freight Transport System

Intermodal transport generally concerns a few of fundamental elements such as freight's characteristics, shippers' and forwarder evaluations, etc.. The freight's characteristics decide the relevant potential demands and the possibility to combine different transport means into intermodalism. The evaluations of shippers and forwarders always have an important impact on the selections of transport. This paper comparatively analyzes the critical elements of freight's characteristics, shippers' and forwarder evaluations. Moreover, the possibilities and relevant issues to form the road-rail intermodal freight transport are discussed, and some suggestions are proposed to improve the railway freight services.