Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INTERMODEL EU (Simulation using Building Information Modeling Methodology of Multimodal, Multipurpose and Multiproduct Freight Railway Terminals Infrastructures.)

Teaser

The main objective of this Project is the development of a methodology and ICT tools which will allow an advanced simulation of intermodal railway logistics platforms models in order to support tasks related to both design and planning phases.Moreover, using these new design...

Summary

The main objective of this Project is the development of a methodology and ICT tools which will allow an advanced simulation of intermodal railway logistics platforms models in order to support tasks related to both design and planning phases.
Moreover, using these new design tool an improvement of the QOS and boost trans-shipment operations between rail and road transport will be achieved.
Developing ICT solution for a holistic integrated planning environment, to enable terminal plans to be managed and communicated for decision making situations. The solution enhances participant interactions by developing on-line solution for viewing the terminal with operational simulation data and associated performance evaluated with KPIs
Set improvements and innovations to be tested in pilot cases and define test scenarios for the virtual pilot cases to assess their impact on the KPIs
Simulation-based decision support environment that supports optimizing the design and optimizing the operational performance of freight terminals. The simulation library has been tested in two real-life case studies.
Consider and simulate the impact of the intermodal terminal on the mobility of the surrounding inland transport network and vice versa and provide all data necessary for its integration in the integrated decision support tool.
Assess tool for railway networks in which intermodal terminals are connected was developed aligning terminal and network operations to increase eh resilience in the network
Assess the role of functional, economic and environment parameters and underlying driver models during the design multimodal terminals and provide ways to measure their role during the design decision process

Work performed

INTERMODEL gives terminal owners and operators, an option to improve decision-making with integrated approach to establish consideration of multimodal terminals. Offers a detailed vision to improve in 3 perspectives: operational, economic and environmental.
The added value of the Integration Platform is the ability to gather the knowledge of different expertise areas in a common environment. Currently each of these areas of expertise works independently, being less efficient in the search of similar results. Consequently, the investment in time and cost is higher.
An INTERMODEL indicator framework has been set and provides a complete vision of the terminal performance.
The Project presents a decision-making tool which evaluates the different alternatives for the design and expansion of a terminal. In order to do so, several scenarios representing the different alternatives must be determined as inputs. However, selection and definition of these scenarios is not an easy task and requires a strong knowledge of the concepts and data needed as well.
From a functional perspective, the platform developed represents a digital tool where identified questions are jointly (among the problem owner and experts) discussed and improved, and then quantitative predictions are given based on the developed holistic and integrative approach.
Stakeholders with different backgrounds can understand various perspectives with a realistic ‘game-type’ visualization of operations. For the decision makers, it provides an opportunity to consider desired functional areas and it is possible to consider e.g. additional data, costs and outside terminal options on different scenarios.
From an economic point of view, the integration platform has also a function for simple financial calculations
The calculation is performed based on:
•Revenue in TEU
•Costs
•Terminal throughput and
•Annual operating hours and carbon footprint.
The user is able to get output including revenue, OPEX, operational profit and margin and carbon footprint. The function helps to adjust operational numbers, when there are e.g. discussions on reducing running costs per hour of the terminal.
After analysing the Project performance made with the available data and based on the Consortium experience, can be concluded that a reduction in time for project definition and study of new terminal proposals could represent savings at around 30% in time and up to 80% in costs from the study perspective.
Environmentally, Intermodel studies the impact that different type of concrete represents for the Sustainability allowing the user the possibility to evaluate how different materials can improve the indicators related.
Regarding the exploitation, several KERs were identified and a Memorandum of Understanding has been generated involving several partners.
Dissemination tools such as social media, brochures and presentation videos have been used and created during the project and will be further used in the following months.

Final results

Some issues were solved among partners, and communicated to the EC. Among them inconsistencies and typos found in the DoA were reported.
Environment has been tested in Intermodel pilot terminals for integrated assessment of freight terminals. Five modules are integrated: Indicators WP3, BIM models WP4, operational simulation WP5, extended mobility WP6, and interconnection WP7. On-line application provides partners to remotely access the virtual terminal. Visualization helps partners with different background to understand terminal and discuss on selections made. Discussions may consider various perspectives because Intermodel indicator framework includes also socio-economic indicators.
Decisions on the design of multimodal terminals have been made bearing in mind their impact on investment costs and construction periods. The possibility of modelling the effects of decisions on the terminal management period allows a much more documented and efficient decision making, including a better evaluation of multimodal terminal projects.
The tool created can be a useful tool for all public administrations, private terminal operators, logistics companies, shippers and rail operators for a better design of the new terminals or to test any modification in the current ones.
Connection between BIM and simulation will save a lot of time in conducting new design processes of terminals, improving the stability/performance of the library of simulation components, extending the library with new components, testing the library in more case studies and integrating in the overall architecture in to the platform developed in to the WP2.
The automatic conversion from BIM (network shp file) to traffic simulation (Aimsun) has not been done previously and is novel addition to the market that could be exploited beyond the life of the project.
Design of terminals and rail networks are two different subjects. Each has its own tools and domain experts. This often results in a sub-optimal combination of the design of the terminal and rail network. At the end of this project we want to have developed an integrated platform in with both terminal and rail network can simulation to prevent suboptimised design. The goal is to align both designs.
The approach for stated preference analysis on the “most relevant” KPIs for terminal planning decision making will be a net contribution to the existing state of the art. To the knowledge of the task leaders the use of an alternative selection game has never applied to this specific area of knowledge. Contributions will be in terms of methodology application.
Communication and dissemination activities are conducted by the entire consortium, addressing audiences at the local/regional/country level.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.intermodeleu.eu.