Research On The Application Of RFID In Railway Container Freight Station

Radio Frequency Identification is a new generation of auto-identification technologies. RFID has been used for the identification, location and tracking of containers. Railway container freight stations are key nodes of railway container transport network, the working efficiency of which has large influence on the efficiency of the container transport system.From the analysis of function and processes of railway container freight station, with considering the technical characteristics and advantages of RFID, this thesis discussed the application feasibility of RFID in container stations, analyzed the economic and overall benefit of the application of RFID, proposed the framework and configuration of RFID system, finally calculated the investment of system and performed Returen on Investment analysis. Furthermore, growth curve method is used to evaluate the current level of RFID and forecast the development trend in the future. This part of work provided useful information when determining the right adoption time of RFID technology. The main contents of this thesis are described as following:1. Based on the patents data, two types of growth curves, Logistic model and Gompertz model, are used to estimate the current development level of barcode and RFID technology. A forecast of technology development is then given. Through analyzing characteristics of the two growth curves, their suitable application condition in technology forecast is discussed.2. The functions and working processes of railway container freight station are then studied. With considering the technical characteristics of RFID and related application example in container industry, possible application areas of RFID inside container station are explored. Then three key application functions are selected for further research. Some mathematical tools such as queuing theory are used to determine the possible effect of using RFID. Potential economic benefit are determined and calculated for a case. 3. The system framework of RFID used in railway container freight station is built. For some key system part such as RFID tag and wireless communication technology, some requirements from the specific conditions of container station are considered and then some possible technical solutions are compared with each other to select the best technical scheme.4. Next, the costs structure of RFID sytem are broken down and calculated accurately based on the base of Shanghai Luchao railway container station. The Net Present Value and Return on Investment are calculated and analyzed in the time range of 7 years. Then Monte Carlo Simulation is used for the sensitivity analysis and risk analysis.