Abstract

The competition in space between rail and sea transport is of great significance to the integration of Eurasia. This paper proposes a land and sea transport spatial balance model for container transport, which can extract a partition line on which transport costs by rail and sea are equal given a destination. Four scenarios are discussed to analyse the effects of different factors on the model. Then the model is empirically tested on current rail and sea transport networks to identify the transport competition pattern in Eurasia. The location of destinations, the freight costs, and time costs are the three main factors affecting the model. Among them, time costs are determined by the value of a container and its contents, the interest rate, and by time differences between land and sea transport. The case study shows that Eurasia forms a transport competition pattern with a land area to sea area ratio of about 1:2; this ratio, however, changes to 1:1 when time costs are considered. Further, the land and sea transport balance lines are consistent with the theories of geopolitics, which indicate that the same processes may exist in the spatial pattern of geo-economics and geopolitics in Eurasia. According to the balance lines, we get a spatial partition, dividing Eurasia into the land transport preferred area, the land–sea transport indifference area, and the sea transport preferred area. The paper brings a new perspective to the exploration of geopolitical economic spatial patterns of Eurasia and provides a practical geographic theory as an analytic basis for the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Highlights

  • Due to the continuous development of maritime transport and its reducing costs, intercontinental containerised transport has been mainly completed over maritime routes during the past century

  • In the future, the Belt and Road Initiative of China (BRI) will be significant to the integration of economic trade in Eurasia, following the premise that land and sea transport should find a spatial balance

  • This paper presents a land and sea transport spatial balance model (LSTSB) model based on the conceptualised Eurasia and simulates different land–sea transport scenarios

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Summary

Introduction

Due to the continuous development of maritime transport and its reducing costs, intercontinental containerised transport has been mainly completed over maritime routes during the past century. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe report of 2018, the total volume of containers imported and exported between China and EU by sea and land transport was 62% and 7%, respectively (UNECE, 2018). This implies a large market share gap between containerised rail transport and maritime transport in Eurasia. Sea routes have dominated the market for a long time, and a huge gap in economic development has emerged between nonlittoral and littoral regions on the Eurasian continent This imbalance needs to be overcome through the further development of land transport. We ask, where are the areas most suitable for rail transport of containers compared to those most suitable for shipping? In addition, knowing that the competitive pattern of rail and sea transport in Eurasia has a practical significance for the implementation of BRI, which factors influence this relationship?

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