Chapter 15: Consolidation and Trans-Shipment

In transport economics consolidation means bundling flows of passengers or goods from different origins and/or to different destinations on common parts of their routes. This operation requires a trans-shipment from one transport mode or vehicle to another, which takes place at a terminal or other type of exchange node. Trans-shipment operations are costly, but consolidation of flows gives access to important economies of density and scale in transportation, which can be best obtained by designing well-organized networks of various forms.

The first part of this chapter describes the different types of consolidation networks, while the second part analyses the economics of trans-shipping and network organization. For simplicity of exposition, the chapter focuses mainly on freight transportation, but most of the content can be readily extrapolated to passenger transportation.