Title: Improving the quality of rail freight services by managing the time-based attributes: the case of non-bulk rail network in Australia

Authors: Hadi Ghaderi; Mohammad-Reza Namazi-Rad; Stephen Cahoon; Jiangang Fei

Addresses: Department of Maritime and Logistics Management, National Centre for Ports and Shipping, Australian Maritime College, TAS 7248, Australia ' SMART Infrastructure Facility, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia ' Department of Maritime and Logistics Management, National Centre for Ports and Shipping, Australian Maritime College, TAS 7248, Australia ' Department of Maritime and Logistics Management, National Centre for Ports and Shipping, Australian Maritime College, TAS 7248, Australia

Abstract: The increasing role of the rail industry in freight markets has been a focusing point when developing transport policies by many governments across the world. The non-bulk freight market in Australia is an example where competition between road and rail is well pronounced. Long transit times and low levels of reliability are key concerns of freight customers hindering their use of rail for interstate freight movements. With the objective of quantitatively evaluating the trade-offs between transit time and reliability, this paper provides insights on how managing the time-based transport attributes can create a competitive advantage for rail transport. To investigate the impact of reducing transit time on train punctuality, an arrival distribution function was developed for both actual and reduced transit time scenarios. The results of the case study show that a marginal reduction in transit time can significantly improve the service reliability in shorter corridors.

Keywords: rail freight; intermodal transport; non-bulk freight transport; interstate transport; quality improvement; freight services; time-based attributes; non-bulk rail networks; Australia; rail transport; transit time; service reliability; train punctuality; case study.

DOI: 10.1504/WRITR.2015.069210

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2015 Vol.5 No.3, pp.203 - 220

Received: 30 Jul 2014
Accepted: 12 Nov 2014
Published online: 05 May 2015 *

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