###### Abstract
In many countries, inland waterway transport connects areas and seaports with inland industrial and population concentration regions and can be used for cargo delivery between areas, from port to its destination areas and from shippers' areas to the ports. Inland waterway transport (barges and inland waterways cargo ships) in many cases uses less energy (fuel) consumption for the transportation of the same cargo volumes [8, 9, 10]. Today, there are many methods for assessing optimal transport modes between regions, consignors and consignees, including energy savings; but at the same time, many of them do not allow for a complex assessment of optimal transport and application impacts in difficult transport conditions, especially when changing transport mode is needed in logistics chains [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. The paper aims to present a scientifically based assessment method developed for optimal transportation between regions, ports and consignees/shippers that are often located long distances between each other, while minimizing the amount of energy (fuel) required. For example, just considering optimal sailing processes and high ship's captain and port pilot qualifications when entering ports and maneuvering in ports could decrease energy consumption up to 12-15% [16]. Optimization transport chains between regions, ports and consignees/shippers, minimize the importance of energy (as a key market driver is considered) by evaluating different transport modes. The main trends and consequence that influence transport systems are presented in Table 1.  
In this paper, the influence of technical, energy saving, cost and time factors on the selection of transport chains is analyzed in detail. This paper aims to develop a method that allows assessment of the possible optimization of the transport modes in a transportation \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline
**Trends** & **Consequences** \\ \hline Increasing competition between transport modes & More efficient transport systems \\ Globalization & More investments in modern transport systems \\ More effective transport systems & Faster logistics \\ Increasing energy costs & Energy savings \\ Increasing environmental demands & New fuels, removable energy, automation \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Key markets drive influence on optimization transport systems and consumption of energy (fuel). chain, considering technical possibilities, energy-saving aspects, cargo delivery time and costs. The research questions and novelties in comparison with existing methods were formulated as follows:  
* How much does competition between transport modes that include increasing or decreasing energy demands and costs influence the selection of optimal transport chains? * What are the advantages of improving transportation processes during cargo delivery? It is assumed there will be differences in the cargo delivery time, costs and consumption of energy by transport modes when selecting different transport chains between regions, ports and consignees/shippers. The proposed method presented in this paper is based on empirical data analysis and indicates the best way to analyze the data using dispersion methods. The aim is to identify possibilities that optimize transportation processes between regions, ports and consignees/shippers, with the potential to reduce transportation costs and consumption of energy (fuel). The case study presented in this paper is based on data from different regions, on which an analysis is performed to verify the method. Real data of transportation cargo between regions, ports and consignees/shippers are considered, bearing in mind that transportation is often performed by different operators. Identified differences in transportation processes parameters allow an estimation of the transportation time, costs and consumption of energy and share of possible positive transportation parameters (time, costs and consumption of energy (fuel) reduction).