Transport Modelling

MDS Transmodal owns and operates the Great Britain Freight Model (GBFM), which forms the freight component of the UK Department for Transport’s National Transport Model.   GBFM consolidates a wide range of official and industry sources to produce a detailed description of freight demand to, from, and within, Great Britain. Transport cost models allocate and assign that demand to replicate multi-modal flows along highway, railway and maritime networks and through the ports including connections with the Continent and Ireland.   We can help you to forecast freight flows for future years, taking into account competition between modes of transport and ferry route, and quantify the impact of potential changes to market conditions or the policy environment on the freight and logistics industry and society. 

Key features:

• Baseline origin-destination matrix of freight demand and network flows for road and rail for Great Britain (GB).
• International flows between GB and the continental mainland and Ireland by shipping route.
• Commodities transported and type of HGV or train.
• Cost models that ‘explain’ freight movement by mode and route.
• Forecasts to a future year.
• Scenarios to quantify the impact of future changes in the market or policy environment.
• Outputs in terms of volume of freight moved by mode and route; industry (user) costs; environmental and congestion (non-user) costs.   

Clients include:  the UK Department for Transport, transport planning consultancies, Transport for the North, Network Rail, ports, economic development agencies and developers of distribution parks.

The Container Business Model (CBM) models the economics of the global container shipping industry and combines data on the deployment of the world’s container shipping fleet with data on containerised trade flows to allocate world trade to individual container ships.  This allows the model to estimate utilisation factors and profitability on trade lanes, which provides essential intelligence for shippers of goods around the world. 

Key features:

• Estimated container shipping revenues and costs (ship costs, bunker costs, terminal handling costs etc.) on each trade lane;
• Estimates of capacity utilisation by trade lane; 
• Results validated against the actual financial results of global shipping lines;
• Deepens understanding of shipping line costs – essential for a full understanding of shipping lines’ freight rates.

The European Container Port Demand Model (ECPDM) encapsulates a wide range of official data sources and transport cost models to simulate the European continental mainland container port market.  The ECPDM can be used to forecast freight flows through your port or port region, taking into account competition between ports, and to quantify the impact of potential changes to market conditions or the policy environment on the global container shipping industry and hinterland transport by road, rail and inland waterway. Results from the model have been presented to DG MOVE of the European Commission, the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and at the European Parliament.

Key features:

• Baseline origin-destination matrix of containerised trade flows from the World Cargo Database (WCD) between global regions and European countries and regions.
• Deep sea and short sea shipping routes to and from European countries and regions.   
• Shipping, road, rail and inland waterway costs models that ‘explain’ flows through the top 40 European container ports on a door-to-door basis.
• Trade forecasts from WCD to a future year. 
• Scenarios to quantify the impact of future changes in the market or policy environment.
• Outputs in terms of volume of traffic moved by port and inland mode of transport.    

Clients include:  ports, national governments and port associations.

The End to End Model Container Cost Model (E2ECCM) models the cost of shipping cargo on a container shipping service via given ports on a door-to-door basis.   It has been used mainly to demonstrate to ports the extent to which they offer competitive locations for container shipping services taking into account the cost of the shipping service itself and inland distribution by road or rail.

Key features:

• Detailed modelling of container shipping costs taking into account vessels costs, bunkers, the number of ships required in the rotation, the number of port calls and the handling time in port.
• Weighted average inland transport cost per container by road and rail for a given distribution of cargo origins and destinations.
• Allows direct comparisons to be made between competitor ports.  

Clients include:  Hutchison Ports, DP World, Associated British Ports, Peel Ports, Venice Port Authority and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

MDS Transmodal can also develop a bespoke model to meet your precise requirements for forecasting or strategic planning needs.  Examples of models that have been developed for specific clients are as follows:

• Malawi Freight Demand Model:  a multi-modal freight demand model (private client). 
• Great Britain Port Supply and Demand Model:  to simulate the demand and supply for port traffic, allowing for cascading of traffic between ports where there are capacity restrictions (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds).
• Horn of Africa Port Demand Model:   to simulate competition between ports in the region based on relative shipping and inland transport costs (private client).
• Coal-fired Power Station Transport Model:  to model the impact of changes in rail network charges on the freight transport market in Great Britain (Office of Rail and Road).  
• Freight demand and allocation for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The company can work with other modellers to develop transport models covering both freight and passenger transport, using existing standard software packages, such as:

• The TRIMODE model, which is being developed as the European Commission’s new transport model by a pan-European consortium using PTV’s Visum software;
• The freight elements of a national transport model by creating modelled inputs and coding in PTV’s Visum software;
• The UK Department for Transport’s new road-based National Transport Model, which is also being developed using Visum software.