Corridors are multimodal entities as they represent the accumulation of transport infrastructures concerning several modes. Thus, within an urban corridor, there is an overlay of modal corridors, each having a market share depending on the basic geography of the region, the respective level of infrastructure investment, and the types of flows involved (passengers or freight):
- The maritime corridor is a set of non-discrete paths (maritime routes) between regional maritime hub centers, which are places of transshipment and logistics.
- Fluvial corridors are a mix of discrete and non-discrete paths, depending on whether canals, rivers, and seacoasts are considered individually. They are an overlay of canals, waterways, and fluvial ports along an axis corresponding to a natural penetration corridor like a major river or a set of interlinked coastal cities. Containerization has enabled the development of new forms of fluvial shipping and enabled several ports (mostly in Western Europe and China) to service their hinterlands through barge services.
- Land corridors are the foundation of a regional economy and provide support to land movements through discrete paths.
- Air corridors correspond to the navigation lanes of air traffic.
Important components of modal corridors are articulation nodes, which regulate flows. Modal corridors interact with one another as some are directly competing while others are complementary. For instance, in a specific region, fluvial and land corridors could compete to attract freight traffic while road and rail could be complementary (focusing on passengers and freight, respectively).