A System Dynamics Model of the Modal Shift from Road to Rail: Containerization and Imposition of Taxes

Over the past decade, intermodal transport focused on reducing external cost, congestion, and carbon dioxide emissions, which have been caused by road transportation. Many policy measures for the modal shift from road to rail have been introduced to address these problems. This study aims at examining the impact of policy measures on promoting modal shift. In line with the previous research on modal shift, a system dynamics model, which can calculate both expected and real modal share, was developed. The proposed model was applied to the steel industry for steel rolled coils transport in South Korea. Under our analysis conditions, the modal shift by the containerization occurred more rapidly than taxations. The major contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) supporting the model to anticipate the modal shift from road to rail and (2) suggesting new insight to promote the modal shift using containerization.