Selection Of Consolidation Center Locations And Optimization Of Route Choices For China Railway Express Considering Environmental Factors

The China Railway Express（CRexpress）has become a new land trade channel connecting China and Europe,and the countries along the“Belt and Road”,with great development potential.The environmental sustainability of the Belt and Road initiative has always been a controversial topic.And the Green Belt and Road initiative marks a new stage in the development of Belt and Road.Considering the environmental concerns created by China’s Belt and Road initiative,and the problems existing in the operation of CRexpress,this dissertation studies selection of the locations of CRexpress consolidation centers from the perspective of government decision makers in the context of Green Belt and Road firstly.A two-stage screening mechanism is constructed,and 31 candidate nodes are selected through the mechanism.Thereafter,a multimodal transport network including railway,highway and waterway is established in this dissertation.Considering the influence of greenhouse gas（GHG）emissions on location selection of consolidation centers,a bi-objective mixed-integer programming model is developed and the augmented?-constraint method is applied to solve it.Through the trade-off process of weighing operating costs and CO₂e emissions,the government decision makers could determine the locations of consolidation centers based on their preferences.It is recommended that Harbin,Lanzhou,Taiyuan,Urumqi,Tianjin and Yingkou would be selected as the consolidation centers.Secondly,based on the selected consolidation centers,this dissertation studies the routes optimization for CRexpress goods from the perspective of CRexpress operators.Under the carbon tax mechanism,a 0-1 integer programming model is developed with the goal of minimizing the total operating costs,and the model is solved using the Cplex solver.The results of the case study show that the operator’s choice of the transportation mode,the consolidation center and the exit port will be affected by the carbon tax rate and transport time limit.Innovative aspects of this dissertation are that this dissertation quantifies the tradeoffs between the operating costs of CRexpress and environmental protection for the first time,and studies the routes optimization of CRexpress under the consolidation mode.On the one hand,this dissertation can provide theoretical support for the sustainable development of Belt and Road,and CRexpress.On the other hand,it can provide decision-making reference for stakeholders in the operation of CRexpress.