Analysis of Cost Allocation Methods in International Sea-Rail Multimodal Freight Transportation

Freight consolidation is often considered in order to enhance the competitive advantage and operational efficiency level of multimodal freighttransportation. The transport networks require substantial horizontal collaborations between multiple partners in the multimodal transport chain. Inthis regard, it raises a question as how the benefits, which will be provided via collaboration, shall be allocated among the participants andbeneficiaries. The vast collection of scientific literature has mainly focused on the development of allocation models for unimodal road transportconducted with the collaboration among shippers and carriers, however there is no sufficient research on the allocation of cost and saving which areprovided over the multimodal freight transport. Furthermore, since the sea and rail transport providers in multimodal freight transport operate withdifferent size and shape of vessels and rail freight wagons with different price structures, application of allocation mechanisms is more complex thanunimodal transport. In this research, cost allocation models are analyzed in multimodal freight transport. In addition to this, three types of costallocation model, respectively, proportional allocation mechanism, decomposition method and Shapley value for the same freight transport volumesare analyzed with comparison of the situations for coalitions which comprise of the two, three and four partners of sea-rail multimodal transport serviceproviders and it ends with the delivered sustainable results.