Multimodal transport means the transportation from the place of shipment to the destination. There are more than two modes of transportation - sea, land, air, inland river and so on. The definition of "United Nations Convention on international multimodal transport of goods" to the international multimodal transport is in accordance with the multimodal transport contract, has at least two different modes of transport, multimodal transport operator has to pick up the goods from the goods within the territory of a country where delivery of the goods shipped to the designated location within the territory of another country.
Such as: from Shanghai to Johannesburg in South Africa (JOHANNESBURG), through the sea - from Shanghai to Durban (DURBAN), and then by land - Durban to Johannesburg. This is already multimodal transport.
But multimodal transport in the sense of international trade should not only have such a premise, but also have "multimodal transport bill of lading" - that is, multimodal transport contracts. What we usually do is this fact, but what we get is generally a "marine bill of lading" rather than "multimodal transport bill of lading". In this way, although multimodal transport is true, it does not conform to the definition of multimodal transport.