Optimizing the transport of export containers along China's coronary artery: The Yangtze River

Abstract

A super network is mathematically represented, consisting of ocean-, road-, rail-, and inland waterways transport, including a major transshipment facility. The network is used to construct a programming model, with the objective of determining the location of dry ports and hub river ports; the travel paths of containers; and the shipping network for transporting them to foreign markets. The export of containers from the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YZREB) to Japan is used as an application, with the port of Yangshan (Shanghai) as the system's major transshipment facility. Our results show that cities near highway terminals, such as Wuhan and Nanjing of our example, or cities located less than 300 km away from the river, are suitable as dry hub-port locations. In our particular case study, Wuhan and Nanjing appear to be ideal river hub-ports, in the midstream and downstream parts of the river respectively, due to their large cargo volumes. Our modelling effort is easily transferable, and thus hopefully helpful, to the planning of multimodal transportation systems, especially those including transportation by Short-Sea-Shipping.