Cooperative intermodal operations using a publish-subscribe approach

This paper introduces and validates through simulations, the concept of cooperative planning of intermodal operations. Using a publish-subscribe approach, vehicles coordinate their arrivals at the terminal to reduce the formation of queues, while the terminal use policies to reward cooperative behaviour. The simulation results are analysed in terms of service rates, delays, and queue sizes at terminals, and is compared to impact on queues of non-cooperative approaches. The proposed approach is expected to influence the functionality of autonomous vehicles in transport logistics, in the future.