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characteristic for which is the movement of goods under door-to-door- conditions
(compare: under the normative approach MTO denominates mostly an actor/person,
who is liable for e.g. damages during the transportation). Practically,
it can be assumed that the role of the TPLs/3PLs is to give a wide array of services
by integrating a single carrier’s - like common carriers’ - service, and subsequently,
sell these services to the clients. It is thus evident that a single operator
carrying out the responsibility of an MTO actually takes responsibility of the
whole transportation process covering all the modes. Often it is rather irrelevant
whether the MTO carries goods by himself or whether he concludes subsequent
agreements with subcontractors.
Also the megacarriers are often willing to enhance their traditional business performance
with new initiatives, which means that the conventional transportation
service (linehaul in specific legs) is extended by value-adding activities; some
common carriers are determined to be megacarriers rather than common carriers
due to expanded service production. The presence of a virtual integrator is
also possible, though rather from a theoretical than from a pragmatical point of
view. Basically, there are two different paths for taking the role of an integrator.
A (common) carrier can expand its conventional business area by taking care of
new VAL activities, and subsequently provide these service packages to their
own clients, or a freight forwarder strongly combines the service as provided by
the different modes, and sells the entity to their own clients, which implies consolidation.
Furthermore, there is a limited number of empirical studies analysing railway
companies in general in IFT networks. Aastrup (2003) has investigated several
different actors in railbased IFT in Denmark: combioperators (e.g. the partners of
UICC) are links between forwarders and railway companies. In the case of a
combioperator, a railcarrier is responsible of providing the haulage of trains
(shuttle trains, scheduled connections, or block trains) in some specified leg.
The combioperator consolidates the full trains, and markets the capacity to the
freight forwarders based on terminal-to-terminal conditions. Thus, the freight
forwarder actually has the role of an intermodal co-ordinator, since they provide
door-to-door services to the firms which subsequently purchase the transportation
service. Besides, a freight forwarder can carry the risk as well. In this sense,
the relationship between a railcarrier vis-à-vis a combioperator is interesting for
the intermodal efficiency, though not valid in Finland, since the absence of this
kind of intermediary is evident. Moreover, it implies that either a focal firm or a
forwarder, or some other operator can take the commercial risk or physical risk
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