2018 Diploma Thesis Title: Designing the Freight Transport Network of Greece

Abstract

Considering the importance of freight transport in the economy and growth of Greece, this diploma thesis focuses on the design of a new freight transport network for the country. The key aspect of the thesis is to define the transport hubs across the country. Initially, we introduce suitable definitions, methods, and practice of freight transport networks. This includes a review of the existing mathematical models proposed and used for freight transport network design. Subsequently, in order to design the Greek freight transport network, we first set up the underlying full network (nodes and arcs) of both the mainland and island parts of Greece. In the second step, we estimate the freight transport demand and the related transport costs over the full network.    Having derived the appropriate data, we apply the most appropriate mathematical model form the literature to the Greek case.  The results provide the proposed location of the hubs for various configurations (1 to 8 hubs).  The results also indicate considerable reductions in transportation costs as the number of hubs increases. Furthermore, we investigated changes in the transportation cost as a function of the inter-hub transportation discount factor α. Opportunities for further research include the application of a more suitable grouping analysis to define the network origins and destinations, as well as development of a model that will take into account the operational and investment costs related to hubs, as well as suitable capacity constraints.  Finally, international transport could be taken into account by setting the gates of the country as nodes of the network and by considering the related flows in the o-d matrix.