An analysis on multimodal transportation of international maritime container cargo in Japanese hinterland

Under the higher concern for the global environment and the strong requests for decreasing freight transportation cost, promotion of the multimodal transportation, which is the efficient collaboration between automobile, railway, and water transportation, is so important that much detailed analyses on it are needed. In this paper, hinterland transportation of international maritime container cargos in Japan, especially focused on transportation by rail, is analyzed from the following viewpoints; I) the present situation of transportation service, ii) the feature on commodities, import/export countries, volume of transportation lots, prices of cargos, and transportation distance, and iii) the effectiveness of modal shift from road transportation to railways, from the viewpoints of the emission of carbon dioxide. Finally, based on above results of the analyses, the perspective of multimodal transportation is discussed