China Railway Express Logistics Network Optimization And Development Strategy

Known as the Belt and Road Initiative,China Railway(CR)Express is a cross continent railway container transport mode between China and Europe,and plays an important role for connecting China and Eurasia market to boost regional economy.However,there are still some problems for CR Express transport network.For example,the inadequate logistics network,lack of reasonable competition and cooperation mechanism,and insufficient recognition and evaluation of overseas nodes.In ordr to improve the network efficiency and overall competition,this work optimizes the hub location of CR Express transport and analyzes its develpment strategy from macro perspective.First of all,this work analyzes the current status and spatial distribution characteristics of the CR Express logistics network.Since 2011,CR Express operates well and develops dramatically.However,analyzing the spatial distribution of CR Express logistics network,it was found that the spatial distribution types did not show a clear pattern due to the lack of overall planning,and still in a random distribution situation.In addition,the clustered area shows competition relationship between different regions always existing and going firecely.Therefore,this work solves three problems,respectively,and the research problems,methods,and conclusions are be summarized as follows.(1)In order to balance cargo flow and improve service efficiency,this paper propose a hierarchical multimodal hub location problem with time restriction for CR Express network.A mix integer programming is formulated and derived,and some results are concluded based on our observation and investigation on CR Express.The results illustrate rail hub location in China with different rail hub number input,and the hinterland of every hub is explores as well.The rail hubs tend to cover more regions first and then be spatially agglomerative in the central and western regions of China.Moreover,we find that the city Wulanchabu that is located in the Inner Mogolia has the largest hinterland range,and that a strong competition among hubs exists in central and western of China,especially for Zhenghzou,Xi'an,Chongqing and Chengdu.(2)In order to investigate the fierce hinterland competition between two neighbouring CR Express lines,this paper first formulates a non-cooperation game model to explore strategic decisions on pricing accounting for competition in a spatial setting,given frequency,government subsidy,local road infrastructure investment,and operation costs.We then extend the model to analyze decisions on frequency and pricing together,and the implications for social welfare,profits and market share as well.Based on the case of lines from Chengdu and Chongqing,we verify our model and conclude some findings.The results show that government subsidy is the major factor that influences operators pricing strategy.Also,frequency and local road infrastructure investment have effects on operators' decisions.For the government,giving more freedom to operators,that is letting operators decide their frequency,is a good way to bring benefits for both social welfare and operator profits.(3)In order to improve the international competitiveness of CR Express,and enhance the understanding of overseas nodes,this work constructs a theoretical framework for overseas node construction and development strategies,including 21 evaluation index at six levels: economic,social,policy,technology,international cooperation with China,and business environment.According to some selection criteria,this work selects 24 sample countries.Secondly,this work put forward a framework to calculate the international cooperation relationship based on web crawler technology.Finally,the improved multicriteria decision-making TOPSIS method is used to calculate the construction and development priority of overseas nodes.Comparing the calculation results by four methods,it is found that the overall performance of Germany and Russia is the best,followed by the six countries of the United Kingdom,the Netherlands,France,Switzerland,Kazakhstan,and Ireland.There are 31 figures,25 tables,and 175 references.