Transferia: solving local pain or bringing global gain?

The sustainability of container transferia, a specific type of intermodal terminals located in the vicinity of ports, is analysed in an external cost evaluation. This concept enables transporting large amounts of containers from a port to a transferium, outside the most congested area, by high-frequency barge or rail transport. From this point onwards, the transport is executed by truck or intermodal. The paper presents a case study of maritime-based container transport in Belgium. A geographic information systems-based model compares transport alternatives, regarding their societal impact. The findings suggest that when trucks perform the hinterland transport to transferia instead of direct truck transport to the port, the production of external costs decreases in the port area, but remains stable in the hinterland. However, when intermodal chains can replace these truck services to the transferia, external costs remain limited in the port area, but also decrease in the hinterland in most cases.