Intermodal Freight Terminals: A Life Cycle Governance Framework

Much work has been done on port governance yet little has addressed intermodal terminal governance, despite the clear similarities. This book fills that gap by establishing a governance framework for situating analysis of intermodal terminals throughout their life cycle. A version of the product life cycle theory is amended with governance theory to produce a framework covering each stage of the terminal’s life cycle, from the initial planning to the many decisions taken regarding the public/private split in funding mechanisms, ownership, selecting an operator, specifying KPIs to the operator, setting fees, earning profit, ensuring fair access to all rail service operators, and finally to reconcessioning the terminal to a new operator, managing the handover and maintaining the terminal throughout its life cycle. An institutional analysis of stakeholder relations, situated within a governance framework, illuminates these issues and enables not only conceptualisation and greater understanding of the geography of intermodal transport, but also decision-making and goal-setting by planners and policy makers. This book thus has three functions: first, as a textbook on the planning and operation of intermodal terminals; second, as a presentation of recent empirical research on intermodal terminal governance; third, as a framework for future research in which the broad field of analysis of intermodal transport can be viewed through a single lens and used to inform geographers, policymakers and planners.

Dr Jason Monios is Associate Professor at the Transport Research Institute, Edinburgh Napier University, UK. His primary research areas are intermodal transport planning and the geography of port systems, with a specific interest in how these two subjects intersect in the port hinterland. He has over 50 peer-reviewed academic publications in addition to numerous research and consultancy reports, covering Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa. He has co-authored technical reports with UNCTAD and UN-ECLAC and been expert adviser to the Scottish parliament. His book Institutional Challenges to Intermodal Transport and Logistics was published in 2014. Professor Rickard Bergqvist is Professor in Logistics and Transport Economics and Head of the Graduate School at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. His key research areas are maritime logistics, regional logistics, intermodal transportation, dry ports and public-private collaboration. His major works include over 30 refereed journal articles, conference papers and book chapters related to intermodal transport, dry ports, economic modelling, maritime economics and public-private collaboration, as well as editing a book on dry ports for Ashgate (2013).