ODYSSEUS 2003, 2 nd International Workshop on Freight Transportation and Logistics

rk to predict the e#ects of changes or improvements in a terminal. A multimodal integrated transport network consists in a set of intermodal nodes connected by modal links (maritime seaway, inland waterway, railway, and roadway) travelled by specialized 1 carriers according to a certain supply scheme and to forwarders' selection on behalf of their own customers. This is represented, for each mode and for a reference period, by an O/D matrix of flows on active links from the places of the origin to destination nodes. Each node exploits the concurrent support of its modal subnodes (port, railway hub, etc.), where commercial activities are carried out by specialized terminals. In such terminals between intermediate nodes, a container may change carriers according to modal priorities, urgency, and selected routing criteria. Intermodal terminals provide a throughput of large quantities of containers, which require the execution of numerous operations, like commercial and financial transa