Inland freight transport in the European Union has almost doubled in the last 30 years. It appears that the major part of this increase has been realised by road transport. One problem in changing the modal-split towards rail and inland waterways is that current planning tools are often not suited for intermodal transport planning as they are primarily developed for unimodal transport. This talk discusses typical requirements arising in intermodal transport. Directions for the development of planning tools for intermodal transport are given and an algorithmic solution approach is briefly outlined.