Sea-rail Intermodal Transport Research Articles

Preliminary investigation of the sea-rail intermodal system's efficiency using a simulation approach: case of the Port of Trois-Rivieres

Sea-rail intermodal transportation around the globe faces complex challenges that affect the satisfaction of shippers' needs. An efficient cargo flow between the port and its hinterland depends particularly on efficient connectivity between the seaport and rail. Sea-rail intermodal can be a cost-efficient and green alternative to unimodal road transportation. Inefficient sea-rail connectivity in the seaport slows cargo flow and affects port capacity. Various factors could affect the system's efficiency and create bottlenecks in the system. A case study adopts a discrete event-based simulation approach to assess bottlenecks in the sea-rail connection that affect cargo flow and generate congestion. The data were collected from the Port of Trois-Rivières, the focus of our investigation. Our objective is to identify bottlenecks in the sea-rail intermodal system in the port, identify strategies to mitigate bottlenecks and accelerate cargo flow. To this end, we examined various scenarios, including an increase in the share of trains for cargo transportation and an increase in the number of daily train convoys. The findings underscore that elevating the train share to 40% and introducing two daily train services yield significant enhancements in key performance indicators. Noteworthy advantages encompass a reduction in the average time ships spend in the port, a decrease in the average waiting time for trains to depart from the port, an overall improvement in cargo handling efficiency within the port, and a notable alleviation of bottlenecks within the system.

Optimisation of trip end service for international container sea-rail intermodal transportation – a case of China–Korea container railway ferry

ABSTRACT An innovative transportation mode for exporting containers from Korea to Europe, involving a combination of port-access liner train, Korea–China train ferry, and CR-Express train, is presented with the objective of maximising transportation profits of the intermodal system, A bi-level model is built, in the upper level, the model determines the location and departure frequency of port-access liner train in Korea, as well as the departure frequency and vessel size of Korea–China train ferry, while in the lower level, the model calculates the choice probabilities of the paths taken by the containers and the corresponding link traffics. A survey is conducted, including both RP (revealed preference) and SP (stated preference) surveys on containers’ path choices, for calibrating the transport utility function by fusing the RP and SP data. The case study shows that for the port-access train, it is optimal to locate the terminals in Seoul and Busan, and to dispatch 11 and 1 trains per week, respectively.

Evaluating the Service Capacity of Port-Centric Intermodal Transshipment Hub

Port-centric intermodal transshipment hubs are significant nodes in the global freight network and are likewise the gateway to a country’s external communications. It is vital to increase the service capacity of PCITHs, and it is necessary to assess the service capacity of port-centric intermodal transshipment hubs to respond to the growth of economies and global freight needs. This study provides a detailed definition of port-centric intermodal transshipment hubs through a review of relevant kinds of works from the literature and analyzes their primary functions. Based on the research perspective of sea–rail intermodal transportation, the three evaluation dimensions of service capacity of port-centric intermodal transshipment hubs are divided into radiation scale capacity, transportation connection capacity, and resource integration capacity, focusing on the functions of cargo aggregation, cargo transfer, and connection of different transportation modes. The service capacity evaluation indicators were then selected based on the three dimensions. The subjective and objective weightings were calculated by the G1 weighting method and the modified CRITIC method, and the combination weightings were determined based on game theory. The service capability of port-centric intermodal transshipment hubs was evaluated by the fuzzy matter element method, and the evaluation results were quantified by the Euclidean closeness degree. Finally, through the barrier degree model, the current indicators of PCITHs that urgently need improvement were explored, and targeted improvement suggestions are proposed in this paper. The results show that Tianjin Port has the highest service capacity, followed by Ningbo Zhoushan Port. The port rail dedicated line mileage is the most critical area that needs attention in Ningbo Zhoushan Port and Qingdao Port. Tianjin Port needs to improve the container sea–rail transportation volume, while Guangzhou Port and Xiamen Port need to improve the sea–rail container handling capacity.

Research on Multi-Equipment Cluster Scheduling of U-Shaped Automated Terminal Yard and Railway Yard

A new layout of the U-shaped automated terminal is more convenient to connect between the terminal and the railway. In this study, a sort of cluster scheduling method for multiple equipment between a U-shaped automated terminal yard and a railway yard is proposed. The innovation points are as follows: (1) Considering that the rail gantry crane (RGC), intelligent guided vehicle (IGV), and double cantilever rail crane (DCRC) usually work in groups, they are grouped and cluster-scheduled. (2) A hybrid integer programming model is established to minimize container transit times, and non-crossing constraints and safe distance constraints are included to reflect complex interactions among terminal equipment. (3) An ADMM (Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers)-based framework is proposed to dualize the hard-edge constraints and break the cluster scheduling problem down into a specific subproblem set of RGCs, IGVs, and DCRCs, and their time cost is iteratively adjusted to improve the solution quality. The experiment results show that the solution of the proposed method, which can effectively avoid IGV conflict, is better than that of the standard Lagrange relaxation (LR) when the number of equipments participating in scheduling increases. This study on multi-equipment cluster scheduling is conducive to improving the collaborative handling and continuous work of terminal equipment, and improving the efficiency of the automated terminal and the sea–rail intermodal transport.

A New Synchronous Handling Technology of Double Stack Container Trains in Sea-Rail Intermodal Terminals

With the advantages of large volume, low unit transportation costs, as well as sustainable and stable transport capacity, China in recent years has actively promoted the innovative pilot of double-stack container sea-rail intermodal transport in the Ningbo-Zhoushan port. In this study, a new synchronous handling technology is proposed to improve the handling efficiency of double-stack container trains at sea-rail intermodal terminals. This research primarily focuses on the design of an LDAGV (Automatic Guided Vehicle with Loading and Discharging Function) and a new special articulated flat car for double-stack container trains, while also optimizing the overall layout of the container terminal yard. It then evaluates nine double-stack container stacking forms based on the requirements of transport gauge and center of gravity height. Finally, using data from the Ningbo Beilun No. 3 container terminal, a cost-benefit analysis is performed to compare the traditional handling scheme for common double-stack container trains and the new synchronous handling scheme for double-stack container trains with new special articulated flat car. The results show that the application of new synchronous handling technology has obvious advantages in terms of reducing the handling time and operation cost of double-stack container trains in sea-rail intermodal container terminals, as well as enriching the stacking forms of double-tier containers on the new special articulated flat car, thus reducing the difficulty of collecting cargoes and the organization of container source.

Sea-Rail Intermodal Transport Path Selection for Japan-Korea FreightBased on CR Express

Sea-Rail Intermodal Transport Path Selection for Japan-Korea FreightBased on CR Express

Analysis of Port Container Sea-Rail Intermodal Transportation System

With the continuous deepening of the China-Europe freight train, the interconnection of countries and regions along the “Belt and Road” has been accelerated, and railway transportation has become an important carrier and transportation backbone linking China-Europe road logistics, effectively promoting the new development of the geo-economics of China and Europe. The container sea-rail intermodal transportation system has developed rapidly. Based on the composition of the existing port container sea-rail intermodal transportation system, this paper use system analysis to describe its various subsystems, and analyzes the port container sea-rail intermodal transportation system composed of the external structure and the internal structure.

Decision framework for location and selection of container multimodal hubs: A case in china under the belt and road initiative

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>The location and selection of logistics nodes that facilitate the China Railway Express and rail-sea intermodal transportation has received increasing attention in China under the Belt and Road Initiative. The objective is to solve problems caused by the increasing number of origin cities opening international trains, such as disorderly competition, insufficient cargoes and low overall coordination. This study screens 22 cities as candidate Chinese international container multimodal hubs (CICMHs) in consideration of the actual situation of China's trade transportation. Thirteen indicators are screened using the information contribution rate-information substitutability method. Then, a comprehensive evaluation model is proposed to evaluate the candidate CICMHs and rank them. The model is based on the extended grey relational analysis-technique for order preference similar to ideal solution in combination with prospect theory. Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xi'an, Nanjing, Tianjin, Zhengzhou and Dalian are selected as the CICMHs. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis of the index weight fluctuations and decision-makers' preference and a comparative analysis of different decision-making methods are performed. The robustness and stability of the proposed model are demonstrated. This study can support the location and selection of CICMHs and expand the methods and applications in the decision-making field.</p>

Hybrid MCDM Model for Location of Logistics Hub: A Case in China Under the Belt and Road Initiative

The location of logistics nodes that facilitate the China Railway Express (CRexpress) and rail-sea intermodal transportation has received increasing attention in China under the Belt and Road initiative. This paper selects 38 cities as candidate Chinese international container intermodal hubs (CICIHs) through qualitative screening by considering the current operations of the CRexpress/rail-sea intermodal transportation and government planning strategies. Subsequently, five connectivity indexes are proposed to reflect the node performance considering the multiple modes and stages of transportation in a logistics chain. In view of the shortcomings of the grey relational analysis-technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (GRA-TOPSIS) method, a hybrid multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model is proposed to comprehensively evaluate the hub location. The model is based on the grey area relational analysis-technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (GARA-TOPSIS) in combination with analytic hierarchy process, entropy method and game theory. Tianjin, Harbin, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, Xi'an, Urumqi, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Nanning are selected as the final CICIHs, considering the geographical location, economic development and national policy pertaining to the Belt and Road initiative. A sensitivity analysis of the index weight and preference coefficient and a comparative analysis of different MCDM methods are performed. The robustness and stability of the proposed model are verified. This study can support the location selection of CICIHs and expand the methods and applications in the decision-making field.

Evaluation of Multimodal Transport in China Based on Hesitation Fuzzy Multiattribute Decision-Making

Intermodal transportation, as an efficient form of transport organization, is a key technology and means for the logistics industry to balance transport costs and efficiency. How to deeply analyze the key factors constraining the level of development of multimodal transportation in China, building multimodal transportation development evaluation index system and evaluation model, evaluating comprehensively the multimodal transportation development level in China, and putting forward targeted countermeasures is of great practical significance. Based on the hesitant fuzzy multiattribute decision-making method, this paper analyzes the key factors influencing the level of multimodal transportation development from the perspective of sea-rail intermodal transport and further uses the interval number discretization and likelihood deviation maximization multiattribute decision-making method to construct a mixed-data index evaluation model, which is combined with data from 11 provinces (cities) in China. The study shows that there is a big gap among different provinces (cities) in China concerning the level of multimodal transportation development. Besides, the volume of intermodal container transportation and railway mileage are the core factors affecting the level of multimodal transportation development, and the results of the evaluation model can objectively reflect the level of multimodal transportation development and problems in each province (city). The research results further enrich the theoretical system of intermodal transportation development and provide a reference for the relevant management departments in formulating intermodal transportation plans and policies by putting forward pertinent suggestions in the field of management. In the future, the research direction should include the ecological environment, economic benefits, and other indicators into the evaluation system, expand the research scope of the modes of combined transportation such as public rail transport and public air transport, and improve the applicable scope of the evaluation model and the evaluation capability of specific scenarios.

Investigating the Practices, Problems, and Policies for Port Sea–Rail Intermodal Transport in China

Intermodalism is currently a mainstream mode of international transport because of its operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness compared with unimodal transport. In 2011, the Chinese government launched port sea–rail intermodal transport (PIT) projects to promote and facilitate its transport system. As a result, seaports are now ruling the waves of sea–rail intermodal transport in China. However, barriers have occurred in many parts of the system from transport sectors to government departments, challenging the accessibility, connectivity, and accountability of the intermodal system. This paper investigates the various parties that are involved in PIT, and aims to outline its development, including its present status, bottlenecks, and other influential elements. Through a questionnaire survey and content analysis, the main problems are identified as lack of institutional design and system regulation, resistance from the rail sector, insufficient cooperation and investment, and a fragmented information system. Policy recommendations are addressed through a three-step administrative framework: (a) unification of international regulations and standards; (b) rail sector reform for better alignment with other transport sectors; (c) incentive policies for enterprises instead of direct subsidies.

A Study on the Development of Container Sea-rail Intermodal Transport of Xiamen Port in the Context of National Logistics Hub

Container sea-rail intermodal transport has the characteristics of low cost, low emission and large scale, and has become one of the important indicators to measure port development. Xiamen has been identified as the strategic fulcrum city of the 21st century Maritime Silk Road, national logistics hub of port type, and Xiamen Port will have great opportunities for development. But, the development of container sea-rail intermodal transport of Xiamen Port is still in the period of market cultivation, and the development level is relatively backward. This paper analyzes the problems in the development of Xiamen Port container sea-rail intermodal transport in terms of railway transport, port operation, shipping company and the construction of information system for rail sea intermodal transport, and put forward the development measures include constructing the railway trunk line and the railway branch lines in port area, building the operation platform for combined transport, paying attention to the source of goods for long-distance and so on. Also, this paper puts forward some implementation plans, such as strengthening organization and coordination mechanism, cultivating leading enterprises, strengthening investment promotion.

Transshipment operations optimization of sea-rail intermodal container in seaport rail terminals

This paper tackles the sea-rail transshipment operation problem of seaport rail terminals, which includes two key sub-problems involved in sea-rail intermodal container transportation, namely train schedule template and transshipment plan of inbound containers. With limited resources and time constraints, operators need to decide the placed-in and taken-out time of trains to coordinate with vessels’ unloading time and the transshipment plan of inbound containers (i.e. the amount of containers that are transshipped between different vessels and trains in each time slot) to maximize the number of direct-transshipment containers while minimizing the storage time and dwell time of inbound containers. The problem is formulated as an integer programming model, and a tailored rolling horizon approach with the adaptive horizon and backtracking strategy is proposed. The performance of the algorithm is verified by a set of instances. The results suggest that the handling capacity of rail-mounted gantry cranes shows a more significant effect on the performance of transshipment operation than other factors. The negative effect caused by insufficient handling capacity could be alleviated by methods like prolonging the feasible service time of trains and enhancing the operational capacity of shunting engines.

Profit Calculation and Allocation for Rail-sea Intermodal Transportation Alliance in Port

Duan, H.-W.; Ma, C.-S., and Ding, X.-D., 2019. Profit calculation and allocation for rail-sea intermodal transportation alliance in port. In: Gong, D.; Zhu, H., and Liu, R. (eds.), Selected Topics in Coastal Research: Engineering, Industry, Economy, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 94, pp. 385–391. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.In order to promote the alliance of railway and marine transport enterprises in port and ensure the alliance stability, the alliance profit calculation model and allocation scheme is studied. Firstly, the essence of the alliance is analyzed. Secondly, the pricing game models of different alliance structures are established and solved to get the alliance profit. Thirdly, the alliance profit is allocated by Myerson value method. Then the allocation scheme is adjusted considering the difference of the resources invested by the alliance members. Finally, numerical example is contructed to verify the validity of the profit calculation model and allocation scheme. Following conclusions are drawn. The more enterprises to participate in the alliance, the more favorable to the customer and the port. Alliance profit is related to the number of enterprises participating in the alliance, but is not related to the nature of the participation. The smaller transportation cost, the greater the alliance profit. It is feasible to allocate the alliance profit in an effective and fair manner based on Myerson value method, but adjustments are necessary to express the influence exerted by resource inputs.

Research on the Strategy of Ningbo Zhoushan Port Sea-rail Intermodal Enterprise Alliance Based on SCM

To develop Sea-rail Intermodal Enterprise Alliance is an efficient approach to reduce the transport cost and expand the market of Sea-rail Intermodal Enterprise Alliance. This article investigates the “four-stream” relationship between operation entities of Sea-rail Intermodal Enterprise Alliance on the basis of supply chain, and analyzes the current situation and necessity of the development of sea-rail intermodal transport of Ningbo zhoushan port. According to AHP to build the model of allies’ choice in Sea-rail Intermodal Enterprise Alliance, calculate and obtain the 5 most essential factors in strategy of Sea-rail Intermodal Enterprise Alliance. Finally, according to the analysis results, the countermeasures and suggestions such as improving the transportation network, establishing the data center, reforming the distribution mechanism, adjusting the management system, and perfecting the policy and regulation system are given.

한･중 해상-철도 연계 컨테이너 운송의 교역규모와 물동량 분석

This study is part of a joint research conducted by Korea and China on the Sea-Rail inter-modal container transport, which is expected to continue to expand along with economic growth in the future. This research is a quantitative analysis of the value and container volume from sea-rail inter-modal transport point of view between Korea and China. We predicted how the trade value and volume of already being transported in containers and potentially containerable items will change in 2030 from sea-rail inter-modal transport point of view. The implications are also derived through detailed analysis by the major railway routes in China. The five key findings of the quantitative analysis process are summarized as follows; First, the largest share of imports and exports in the ‘Yellow See Coastal Lane Area’ is electrical and electronic products (HS 85). Despite the recent cooling of relations between Korea and China, imports of vegetables from Shandong province in China have been gradually increasing. Second, the fact that the amount of trade between China and Korea in ‘Western Inland Lane Area’ has increased three-fold over the past three years confirms the fact that the Chinas western development is in full scale. Third, it is understood that the ‘Southern Inland Lane Area’ is gradually increasing in trade with the development of the Grand Canal in the Yangtze River in 2008 when the Sansha Dam was completed. Fourth, the export cargo volume to ‘Beijing Region Lane Area’ is only half that of imported cargo, so it is urgent to take measures against the export of the export to this region in our country. It is urgent to establish countermeasures against back-haul exported to the region from Korea. Lastly, it is analyzed that imports of items such as clothing(excluding knitted fabric), electrical and electronic devices, fishery products, etc., have been increasing steadily, although imports in the ‘Northeast Region Lane Area’ have not reached the level of one third of ‘Yellow See Coastal Lane Area’.

Reliability Analysis of Logistics Network of Rail-sea Intermodal Transportation in Internet of Things Environment

ABSTRACT Zhang, Z.; Zhao, J.; Cui, J., and Nie, H., 2018. Reliability analysis of logistics network of rail-sea intermodal transportation in internet of things environment. In: Liu, Z.L. and Mi, C. (eds.), Advances in Sustainable Port and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 83, pp. 823–827. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The current method for the reliability analysis of the rail-sea intermodal transportation logistics network has the problem of low efficiency and high cost. This paper proposes a method of logistics network reliability analysis of rail-sea intermodal transportation based on EOQ in the Internet of things environment. Firstly, this method analyzed reliability index of sea-rail intermodal transportation logistics network and reliability requirement of sea-rail intermodal transportation network. Secondly, the method simply introduced the train operation plan of container train and the capability of material handling equipment. Finally, our method used t...

A Research on Supply Chain of Sea-Rail Intermodal Transport Service Industry Based on Stackelberg Model

A Research on Supply Chain of Sea-Rail Intermodal Transport Service Industry Based on Stackelberg Model

A performance-driven multi-algorithm selection strategy for energy consumption optimization of sea-rail intermodal transportation

Abstract Various powerful differential evolution (DE) algorithms have been developed in the past years, although none of them can consistently perform well on all types of problems. However, it is not straightforward to choose an appropriate algorithm for solving a real-world problem, as the properties of the problem are usually not well understood beforehand. Therefore, how to automatically select an appropriate DE variant for solving a particular problem at hand is an important and challenging task. In the present work, a performance-driven multi-algorithm selection strategy (PMSS) is proposed to alleviate the above mentioned problems for single objective optimization. In PMSS, a learning-forgetting mechanism is introduced to update the selection probability of each algorithm from a pool of DE variants to make sure that the best performing one is chosen during the search process. The effectiveness of PMSS is carefully examined on two suites of widely used test problems and the results indicate that the PMSS is highly effective and computationally efficient. Finally, the proposed algorithm is employed to optimize the energy consumption of sea-rail intermodal transportation. Our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is successful achieving satisfactory solution that are able to provide insights into the problem and the algorithm is promising to be applied for solving real sea-rail intermodal and other multimodal transportation planning problems.

Stochastic Empty Container Repositioning Problem with CO2 Emission Considerations for an Intermodal Transportation System

As one of main challenge for carriers, empty container repositioning is subject to various uncertain factors in practice, which causes more operation costs. At the same time, the movements of empty containers can result in air pollution because of the CO2 emission, which has a negative impact on sustainable development. To incorporate environmental and stochastic characteristics of container shipping, in this paper, an empty container repositioning problem, taking into account CO2 emission, stochastic demand, and supply, is introduced in a sea–rail intermodal transportation system. This problem is formulated as a chance-constrained nonlinear integer programming model minimising the expected value of total weighted cost. A sample average approximation method is applied to convert this model into its deterministic equivalents, which is then solved by the proposed two-phase tabu search algorithm. A numerical example is studied to conclude that the stochastic demand and supply lead to more repositioning and CO2 emission-related cost. Total cost, inventory cost, and leasing cost increase with the variabilities of uncertain parameters. We also found that the total cost and other component costs are strongly dependent on the weights of repositioning cost and CO2 emission-related cost. Additionally, the sensitivity analysis is conducted on unit leasing cost.