International multimodal transport is a form of transportation organization in which two or more different modes of transport are used. At least two modes of transportation mentioned here can be: land and sea, land and air, sea and air, etc. This is essentially different from the general sea sea, land, air and other forms of intermodal transport. Although the latter is also combined transport, it is still a mode of transport between the same means of transport. As we all know, all kinds of transportation modes have their own advantages and disadvantages. Generally speaking, waterway transportation has the advantages of large volume and low cost; road transportation has the characteristics of flexibility and convenience to realize the door-to-door transportation of goods. The main advantage of railway transportation is that it is not affected by climate, and can realize long-distance and timely transportation of goods through inland areas; and the main advantage of air transportation is that it can realize the rapid transportation of goods. As international multimodal transport strictly stipulates that two or more modes of transport must be adopted, this form of transport organization can make full use of the advantages of various modes of transport and fully reflect the characteristics of large-scale socialized production and transportation.

Due to the incomparable superiority of international multimodal transport with other forms of transportation organization, this new technology of international transportation has been widely promoted and applied in major countries and regions of the world. At present, the representative national multimodal transport mainly includes far east / Europe, Far East / North America and other sea, land and air transport

1. Sea land combined transport

Sea land intermodal transport is the main form of international multimodal transport, and also one of the main forms of Far East / European multimodal transport. At present, the main organization and operation of the Far East / Europe sea land intermodal transport business mainly include the liner Association's Sanlian Group, North Holland, guanhang and Maersk in Denmark, as well as COSCO, Taiwan's Evergreen shipping company and Germany's Naya shipping company. This kind of organization takes the shipping company as the main body, issues the through bill of lading, carries on the intermodal transportation business with the inland transportation departments at both ends of the route, and competes with the continental bridge transportation.

2. Land bridge transportation

In the international multimodal transport, land bridge service plays a very important role. It is the main form of international multimodal transport in the Far East / Europe. The so-called land bridge transportation refers to a continuous mode of transportation in which special container trains or trucks are used, and the railway or highway across the mainland is taken as the intermediate "bridge", so that the container shipping routes at both ends of the mainland are connected with special trains or trucks. Strictly speaking, land bridge transportation is also a form of sea land combined transportation.