As can be taken from figure 2 the maritime transport chain consists of a maritime pre-haul (supply of empty container, loading of container as well as land transport), a maritime main-haul (handling of container at seaports and overseas transport) and a maritime post-haul (land transport, unloading of container and return of empty container). (Schönknecht, 2009; Grig, 2012; Walter, 2015)
The targets of synchromodality depend on the considered scope (within the fields of logistics). The targets of synchromodality as a concept for maritime transport chains are derived from the targets of synchromodality in general as described by ECT (2011), van Wijk et al. (2011), Verweij (2011), Douma et al. (2012), Pleszko (2012), van der Burgh (2012), Li et al. (2013), van Riessen (2013), van Riessen et al. (2013a), van Riessen et al. (2013b), Behdani et al. (2014), SteadieSeifi et al. (2014), Putz et al. (2015), Reis (2015) and Tavasszy et al. (2015). In order to make hinterland transportation more efficient the realization of synchromodality aims at achieving the following targets:
- Reduction of the total costs for transport, handling, storage, capital commitment and charges
- Reduction of other logistics costs than transport, handling, storage, capital commitment and charges by
- … an increased resilience within the maritime pre- and post-haul;
- … an increased reliability of the maritime pre- and post-haul;
- … an increased flexibility within the maritime pre- and post-haul;
- … an increased responsiveness within the maritime pre- and post-haul;
- … an improved service quality across the whole maritime transport chain;
- Increase of sustainability across the whole maritime transport chain and
- Coping the growth in transport volumes by an improved use of infrastructure
Van Riessen (2013), van Riessen et al. (2013a), van Riessen et al. (2013b) and Tavasszy et al. (2015) explicitly state that the reduction of transport and handling costs is a target of synchromodality. According to them the increased and flexible combination of different transport modes within a clearly defined network leads to time and cost advantages. This is illustrated in Figure 3.