Cargo-Specific Multimodal Freight Transport Performance Assessment Using a Minimum-Cost Flow Framework in Laos

Dynamic freight transportation systems are critical for improving logistics performance in developing economies where multimodal integration remains limited. Despite Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR)’s substantial investments to transition from a landlocked to a land-linked hub, quantitative assessments capturing heterogeneous cargo behavior across its multimodal networks are scarce. This study develops a cargo-specific, multi-source, multi-sink minimum-cost flow (MCF) framework to evaluate freight transport performance in Lao PDR. The framework integrates road, railway, inland waterway, and air transport into a unified directed network, capturing heterogeneous behaviors across six cargo categories. Testing under three demand scenarios (Q500, Q1000, and Q2000 tons/day) across both export and import systems, the results from 99 feasible solutions indicate that railway transport consistently dominates long-distance corridors within the assumptions of the proposed framework, reflecting its structural cost advantages. Conversely, road transport primarily serves first- and last-mile connectivity, while inland waterways and air transport serve as supplementary modes. Ultimately, these findings provide scenario-based insights to support policy decision-making for cross-border infrastructure investments, regional dry port integration, and synchronized rail-road connectivity across the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).