Intermodal transport in Europe: Trends & Drivers

European goverments aim at intermodal freight transport instead of road freight transport. An increase of intermodal freight transport could lead to an improvement of cost effectiveness, economic growth and the reduction of social and environmental externalities. Despite this, road transport still remains dominant. Quantification studies could lead to a better understanding of how to promote intermodal transport. Not a lot of econometric research has been done yet, especially because data are on country level. In this research data on a more disaggregated level, namely the level of origin-destinations, could be used. Linear, Poisson and negative binomial fixed and random effects models are implemented to declare the number of departures per week from a certain origin to a certain destination. For sake of comparison market share models are applied on country level data to describe the positions of several countries in the freight market. The results address useful and interesting relationships and show that government policy should focus on investments in port infrastructure and on increasing Diesel tax. Furthermore, it shows the importance of quantification and the importance of data on the level of origin-destination.