Impact of noise on the regulation of intracellular transport of intermediate filaments

•Stochastic and deterministic models both describe motor-driven filament transport.•Comparing stochastic and deterministic forms assesses the impact of intrinsic noise.•Discrepancies between multi-stable deterministic and stochastic models emerge.•Intrinsic noise helps coordinate polarized transport of filament ensemble.•In biological systems, motor binding properties are a major regulatory mechanism.