Measuring Performances of Multi-mode Marshalling Yards

The chapter deals with the wagonload freight transport. This kind of transport used to be the core business of railways during the last century, while in last decades it began to see its market share reduced in favour of other transport typologies (e.g. intermodal transport). Today wagonload transport seems no longer economically viable and the smaller and medium volumes used majorly road vehicles and sometimes combined transport. One of many possible ways to try reversing the trend is to convert the old and increasingly frequent abandoned marshalling yards in technological terminals able to receive different kinds of trains equipped with different technologies. These terminals are the Multi-Mode marshalling yards (MMM). This definition refers mainly to the mode of transport and the different railway operation. In this paper are presented the most relevant results obtained through the modelling the operation of a real marshalling yard sited in Hallsberg, Sweden. There are under introduction some innovative technologies and operative measures to quantify the improvements in operations that could contribute to a recovery of the wagonload transport, reducing the wagons mean transit time through the yards while increasing reliability.