Multi-Modal Freight Mode Optimizer

Priority Weights

Cost priority 33%

CO₂ priority 33%

Speed priority 34%

Route Result

Total cost

Total CO₂

0 kg

Total transit time

0 h

How it works

A shipment travels four legs — factory → port hub → overseas hub → distribution center → retail store. Each leg offers a subset of transport modes (truck, rail, ship, air), each with its own cost rate, CO₂ rate and average speed. Per leg and mode:

cost = costRate × distance
CO2  = co2Rate  × distance
time = distance / speed

This is a classic weighted-sum multi-criteria decision (MCDM) problem. For each leg, every candidate mode's cost, CO₂ and time are min–max normalised to [0,1] across that leg's candidates, then combined into one score using your priority sliders (normalised so w_cost+w_CO2+w_time = 1):

score = wCost·costNorm + wCO2·co2Norm + wTime·timeNorm
chosen mode = argmin(score)

Priority sliders — push weight toward cost, emissions or speed; the optimizer re-solves every leg instantly.
Eco Cap — when on, the highest-emission mode available on each multi-mode leg (typically air freight) is removed from consideration before scoring, modelling a corporate sustainability policy.
Cargo packets in the 3D view flow along the currently chosen path per leg; dim lines show the modes that were considered but not picked.

This mirrors real freight-network optimization: logistics platforms score truck/rail/ocean/air options per lane against cost, emissions and lead-time targets rather than optimizing any single metric alone.

Truck Rail Ship Air

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