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Board’s inland‑intermodal study advances; members stress railroad feasibility, pricing and protection of urban industrial land
Summary
The inland intermodal ad hoc committee reported progress defining inland‑port typologies and preparing stakeholder interviews; board members urged a thorough analysis of rail economics, handling/touch costs, and risks to urban industrial land to ensure proposed inland intermodal sites would be operationally and economically viable.
Staff updated the board on the inland intermodal study and the committee’s effort to adopt a unified definition and typology for inland ports, intermodal facilities and logistics clusters. The study team proposed categories including satellite marine terminals, rail intermodal logistics parks, short‑haul intermodal services and truck transload facilities and planned a case‑study and stakeholder interview sequence.
Committee and board members urged that the study not simply recycle prior work or examples that have failed. Board members emphasized three areas for the consultant to prioritize: (1) operational feasibility from the railroads’ perspective (rail lines typically favor longer‑haul moves and have constraints on short, low‑density traffic), (2) full‑cost pricing that accounts for every container touch (truck and rail rates, handling and storage costs) so a rail modal shift can pencil out for shippers, and (3) protection of urban industrial land near terminals to avoid losing critical logistics real estate to other uses.
Members requested that the consultant prioritize interviews with railroads — a tradeoff was noted because rail operations are ‘‘momentum based’’ and operationally sensitive. Staff said they would press to schedule railroad interviews and return with interview outcomes to the committee.
Next steps: consultant interviews with railroads and local operators, refinement of typologies, case‑study analysis of successful and failed inland intermodal projects, and incorporation of a pricing model to test geographic feasibility. The board asked staff to return with railroad interview summaries at the next committee meeting.
