Description:
<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>The first purpose is to assess the quality of containerized multimodal export and the second is to develop and demonstrate the design of a service network with quality approach.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>The article used the structural equation model to develop a model to measure the quality of multimodal transportation for containerized exports and finalized the model with an alternative approach. The evolutionary algorithm had been used to design a service network based on quality.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Provided factors affecting quality of multimodal transportation and reverse to one hypothesis, the construct variation in cost, time shape and quantity did not affect the quality of multimodal transportation for containerized exports. The model without variation construct was finalized by exploring causality.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>This research had scope till container loading onto the vessel and assessed the quality for containerized cargo only, and second research purpose is limited by assumed values of fitness function and the limited number of nodes, in service network design demonstration.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title><jats:p>This research provided a tool to measure the quality of multimodal transportation for containerized exports and demonstrated the field application of the model developed in service network design. This approach included all factors applicable across the container movement. The integrated approach of the article provided an organized method to design a service network for containerized exports.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>This work provided the tool to assess the quality of multimodal transportation for containerized exports and developed an approach to design a service network of multimodal transportation based on quality. This approach has considered the factors of multimodal transportation comprehensively in contrast to the optimization approaches based on operation research techniques.</jats:p></jats:sec>