Sustainable Logistics: How to Choose the Right Location for Multimodal Transport
"Unlock the secrets to efficient and environmentally friendly logistics by selecting the ideal location for multimodal centers."
In today's globalized economy, logistics centers play a vital role in facilitating the movement of goods across vast distances. As businesses strive to optimize their supply chains and minimize environmental impact, the selection of locations for these centers becomes increasingly crucial. Traditional methods often fall short in addressing the complexities of sustainable logistics, necessitating innovative approaches.
The rise of multimodal transport—integrating various modes like road, rail, and waterways—offers a promising avenue for enhancing efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. However, realizing the full potential of multimodal systems requires careful consideration of location-specific factors that influence operational effectiveness and environmental sustainability.
This article explores how a cutting-edge hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, known as DEMATEL-MAIRCA, is revolutionizing the way we approach location selection for multimodal logistics centers. By combining the strengths of two distinct methodologies, this innovative model empowers decision-makers to navigate the intricate landscape of sustainable logistics and identify optimal locations that strike a harmonious balance between economic viability, environmental responsibility, and social considerations.
The Growing Demand for Sustainable Logistics
Customers increasingly demand sustainable logistics, yet few companies dedicate resources or mandate systemic adoption of greener practices, according to the LEMAN Global Sustainable Logistics Report 2025. The strongest lever for accelerating sustainability remains supply chain collaboration, where large, sustainability-committed companies can create ripple effects by extending mandates and budgets to logistics partners. International data on transport trends is fragmented, though the International Transport Forum (ITF) maintains the only source of statistics covering all modes of transport across its member countries. The SuM4All Data Tracking Initiative further underscores the need to systematically monitor global progress toward sustainable transport, though comprehensive cross-modal data remains a challenge.
Conventional Site-Selection Methods
Traditional approaches to selecting multimodal transport locations have relied heavily on proximity to existing infrastructure nodes such as ports, rail terminals, and highways, combined with basic cost-benefit analyses. These methods often prioritize short-term economic efficiency over long-term environmental and resilience considerations. While widely accepted in practice, such approaches tend to treat transport modes in isolation rather than as integrated systems, potentially overlooking synergies that a truly multimodal strategy can unlock.
The Evolution of Multimodal Thinking
The concept of combining multiple transport modes for a single shipment has roots in early containerization efforts of the mid-twentieth century, which standardized unit loads and made intermodal transfers practical. Over subsequent decades, globalization and supply chain complexity progressively raised the stakes for efficient cross-modal coordination. Academic interest in multimodal logistics as a distinct field of study has grown considerably in recent years, driven by mounting environmental pressures and the recognition that no single transport mode can serve all logistics needs sustainably.
Decoding the DEMATEL-MAIRCA Model: A Step-by-Step Guide
The DEMATEL-MAIRCA model represents a significant advancement in decision-making for sustainable logistics, offering a structured and comprehensive approach to location selection. This hybrid model integrates two powerful methodologies:
- Identify Criteria: Determine the factors relevant to location selection (e.g., connectivity, environmental impact).
- Expert Opinions: Gather input from experts to assess the influence of each criterion on others.
- Develop Relationships: Create a relationship matrix to visualize the influence between criteria.
- Calculate Weights: Determine the weight coefficients to quantify the importance of each criterion.
Advancing Multimodal Research for Sustainability
Recent research frames multimodal transportation as an effective and sustainable solution for supply chains, with a particular focus on reducing reliance on road transport while optimizing cost, time, and emissions. A 2025 study published on arXiv introduces models that incorporate multi-modal routing with carbon emission constraints, selecting optimized vehicle mixes across modes to meet sustainability targets. Systematic reviews spanning 2012 to 2024 have mapped the landscape of sustainable multimodal transportation, explicitly aligning findings with UN Sustainable Development Goals 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and 13 (Climate Action). These reviews collectively highlight that combining transport modes can simultaneously address efficiency, resilience, and environmental impact in global logistics networks.
Challenges and Skepticism
Despite its promise, multimodal transport location selection faces genuine obstacles that temper enthusiasm. Coordination across different operators, regulatory regimes, and infrastructure owners introduces friction that single-mode logistics avoids. Small and mid-sized logistics providers often lack the capital and technical capacity to invest in seamless intermodal transitions, raising concerns that multimodal strategies may primarily benefit large players.
How Modes Stack Up on Sustainability
A study published in Annals of Operations Research demonstrates that incorporating multimodal transportation into supply chain design decreases both total cost and carbon emissions compared to single-mode alternatives. However, the same research finds that when decision-makers are risk-averse, total supply chain cost and carbon emissions actually increase, suggesting a tension between risk management and sustainability optimization. DHL Freight Connections highlights that among individual modes, rail and sea freight significantly outperform road and air in environmental performance per ton-kilometer. These findings suggest that location decisions for multimodal hubs must balance environmental gains against the operational risks and cost premiums that arise from integrating lower-emission modes.
The Future of Sustainable Logistics
As businesses and governments worldwide recognize the urgent need for sustainable practices, the DEMATEL-MAIRCA model provides a valuable tool for optimizing logistics operations and minimizing environmental impact. By embracing innovative decision-making frameworks, we can pave the way for a future where supply chains are not only efficient but also environmentally responsible.
Drawing the Threads Together
The evidence across recent studies converges on a clear point: selecting the right location for multimodal transport hubs is not merely a logistical calculation but a strategic sustainability decision. No single metric suffices; planners must weigh emissions data, cost models, risk profiles, and infrastructure readiness in combination. As the field matures, the integration of empirical data into decision-support models remains an acknowledged gap that future work must address.
Where Multimodal Logistics Is Heading
The multimodal freight transportation market is experiencing significant growth, driven by increased globalization, rapid e-commerce expansion, and technological advancements in logistics. Market analyses for 2026 project continued expansion, with major players such as DHL, UPS, and AllCargo Logistics shaping trends in efficiency and sustainability. Upcoming special issues in leading journals will further explore multimodal transportation as a solution for reducing road transport reliance while optimizing cost, time, and emissions. Innovations in route optimization, digital tracking, and emission-capping models are expected to play an increasingly central role in location planning for multimodal networks.
Systemic Hurdles in Global Supply Chains
Narrative reviews synthesized across Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar identify multimodal transportation as a critical solution for enhancing efficiency and resilience in integrated logistics networks. Yet these same reviews note that global supply chain challenges — including fragmented infrastructure, inconsistent regulatory frameworks, and uneven investment — remain formidable barriers to widespread adoption. The academic consensus is that while multimodal logistics offers systemic benefits, realizing them requires coordinated action across institutional and geographic boundaries that do not yet exist at scale.
Real-World Complexities and Human Factors
A 2025 Springer study emphasizes that improving operational effectiveness in freight conveyance must not come at the cost of environmental sustainability, framing this as a pressing practical challenge. Real-world case studies, such as one examining inland waterway versus truck supply routes in the West German canal system, reveal that infrastructure failures force costly rerouting and modal shifting that undermine green logistics plans. Research published in 2025 further notes a dearth of decision optimization models that utilize empirical data to study the complexities of real-world multimodal global supply chain operations, meaning many location decisions still rely on incomplete information. These gaps underscore that human judgment, local knowledge, and adaptive planning remain indispensable complements to quantitative models.