Exploring The Impacts Of Grain Containerization On Railway Operation Performance

Globalization phenomenon has driven economy towards production specialization and economic interdependency,and a classic example is the massive trade of manufactured products from Asia to the west and agriculture products from the opposing direction.Traditional bulk grain and containerized products supply chains have distinctive characteristics,generating lots of empty back trips.New trends are considering grain containerization as an alternative operational practice to diminish empty trips,increasing capacity throughput.Transportation is a key element in any supply chain and railways are more cost effective for long distance land trips than roads.Thus,this current research is focused on the railway operator point of view,an innovative approach from most grain containerization investigations,usually focused on the grain supply chain perspective.To extract most benefit from the available infrastructure,rail corridors are mixed-use,however,different train speed in the network constrains railway capacity,especially on single track lines.Capacity expansion can be achieved by means of infrastructure upgrade or operation modifications,the latter should be considered first because they are usually less expensive and more quickly implemented.The new grain containerization trend stands as an alternative operational practice to increase railway capacity throughput,to diminish empty trips,and to enhance railway operation effectiveness and efficiency.Operational Profit(OP)and Operating Ratio Index(ORI)are common goals of any railway company,respectively expressing the ability for a given railway to generate net income and the capability to cover its financial obligation,generating profit.Based on the round-trip concept,the normal standard transportation features one loaded freight leg and an empty return leg,however,grain containerization new trend looks to benefit from those empty legs by means of backhaul trip,the opportunity to make an extra load in a round trip,and match back trip,a similar idea but considering an extra empty movement before accessing the extra load.With a hypothetical rail corridor as background and considering 720 input scenarios variations,this exploratory study is based on operational research technics,developing the PMGC model(Profit Maximization by Grain Containerization Model),an integer linear programming(ILP)to maximize OP by simplex method,and a respective ORI is simple calculated for each OP result.Changes in the distances(geographic location),in train traffic mix(strategic decision),in the grain containerized transportation rate(tactical decision),and in the round-trip cost to price ratio(operational decision),generates an extensive data set.Comparisons from OP and ORI between the standard and the new transportation trend bring light to the impacts from grain containerization on railway operation effectiveness and efficiency.Conclusions suggest that grain containerization always benefits from backhaul trips,improving OP performance,but ORI improvement is related to match back trip,which occurs within a breaking distance in the round trip,pointing that grain containerization is an alternative operational practice that strongly contributes for a more effective railway operation and frequently contributes for a more efficient operational railway operation.However,findings from a sensitive analysis indicates that managerial decision interfere in the results.At the strategic level of decision,traffic mix does not substantially change the breaking distance for match back trip,but more intermodal in the traffic mix positively impacts OP and ORI performance.Regarding tactical decision level,higher containerized grain transportation rates extend the breaking distance length,enabling more match back trips and positively impacting OP and ORI performance.Finally,at the operational level,?OP performance is better for higher cost to price ratio,although,absolute improvement is reached on lower cost to price ratio,but ORI improvement is a consequence from the breaking distance,that is shortened for higher cost to price ratio,negatively impacting ORI.Inferences and conclusions from the sensitive analysis offer relevant insights for railway operators to plan their future investments,as shifting grain transportation from regular hooper cars into containers will eventually call for adaptation on loading and unloading machineries,yards configurations and rolling stocks characteristics.Moreover,the PMGC model flexibility creates a framework to permit easily reproducing the experiment on any railroad with similar circumstances,allowing operators to evaluate their own specific conditions and consequences.