An analytical approach to the protection planning of a rail intermodal terminal network

•We study fortification planning in a rail intermodal terminal network.•A tri-level, defender-attacker-defender framework, formulation is proposed.•A decomposition-based heuristic is proposed.•Judiciously spending the finite resources would improve the post-interdiction connectivity.•Protecting the critical elements may not provide the best fortification. Rail-truck intermodal transportation has experienced remarkable growth over the past three decades, and plays a vital role in the freight transportation system in North America. Hence, a crucial issue is to guarantee continuity of service and to minimize the adverse impacts following disruption, natural or man-made. We make the first attempt to develop an analytical framework that could be used by rail intermodal owners to determine the best fortification plan in order to minimize the impact of a worst-case attack. The complexity of the resulting tri-level mathematical model motivated the development of a decomposition-based heuristic solution technique, and the resulting analytical approach was used to solve and analyze problem instances generated using the realistic infrastructure of a railroad operator.