A multimodal location and routing model for hazardous materials transportation.

The recent US Commodity Flow Survey data suggest that transporting hazardous materials (HAZMAT) often involves multiple modes, especially for long-distance transportation. However, not much research has been conducted on HAZMAT location and routing on a multimodal transportation network. Most existing HAZMAT location and routing studies focus exclusively on single mode (either highways or railways). Motivated by the lack of research on multimodal HAZMAT location and routing and the fact that there is an increasing demand for it, this research proposes a multimodal HAZMAT model that simultaneously optimizes the locations of transfer yards and transportation routes. The developed model is applied to two case studies of different network sizes to demonstrate its applicability. The results are analyzed and suggestions for future research are provided.