Study On The Organization Of The Container Liner Trains Between Railway Logistics Centers And Specialized Container Stations

With the rapid development of Chinese economy, the production of high value-added commodities is increasing speedily. These products have higher requirement on safety, speed and containerization in transportation. And they will take a larger and larger proportion in the freight transport market. As a result, there will be great potential in container transportation development in the future.According to the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" and "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" of Ministry of Railways as well as "Long-Term Railway Network Development Plan" from the State Council in 2004, 18 railway container logistics centers will be built in China, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao. At the same time, there will be an adjustment on the container railway network. About 40 specialized container stations and 100 agent stations will also be set up. A Three-Level Network will be set up, that is Logistics Centers—Specialized Container Stations—Agent Stations. The new network brings up higher demand on the organization of container liner trains. Based on this situation, this paper has done some related research.In this paper, based on a detailed analysis of the present situation of Chinese railway container transportation, the necessity for the new container transport network is discussed. The definitions and functions of the Logistics Centers, Specialized Container Stations and Agent Stations are addressed. By using GM(1,1) model, elasticity coefficient method and proportion allotted model, container flows between these stations are forecasted. By analyzing the factors which affect the container liner train organization, the approach to construct the container liner train operating plan is proposed.