Research On Inland Container Transportation Networks Optimization

In recent years, with the continuous development of the global container shipping industry, inland container multimodal transport network acts as an increasingly important role in the overall container transport system, and plays a key influence in improving the efficiency of the entire container transport system and reducing transportation costs.With the improvement of container multimodal transport system and the constantly clarity of container multimodal transport system network hierarchy, the study of container transport technology, operation organization, specialized equipment as well as that of the operation of container ports and terminals has penetrated into a deeper level. In theory and practice it is increasingly recognized that container transport is a large system, therefore, the study of container transport has gradually expanded from the sea route design, equipment technology, terminal operations process and technology and other aspects to the optimization of inland container collection and distribution system and the construction of transport network.This paper takes inland container transport network as the study object and treats the inland container transport network as an important part of container multimodal transport network. By optimized configuring nodes of inland container transport network, we improve the rationality of inland container transport network structure and the operational level of transport activities, and improve the inland container transport efficiency and reduce transportation costs at the same time.The study of inland container transport network optimization problem is conducted from three aspects in this paper:(1) On the basis of an established reasonable allocation of container cargo flow, gradually adjusting the number of hub sites in inland container transport network, changes in distribution of cargo flows and the impact on the system’s total transportation cost before and after the adjustment are compared and analyzed. Based on the results the hub sites in inland container transport network are selected, and then the number and layout of reserved reasonable hub sites is determined, aiming to achieve the best of the whole system.(2) Analyze the road capacity of various modes of transport and capacity constraints of available vehicle, combine practical examples to propose cargo flows distribution plan under the conditions that the systematic total cost of transportation is lowest during the period. Under the condition of multi-hub port and crossed hinterland, analyze various factors of the port attracting container cargo flows and the relationship between them, study the impact degree on the flow of cargo distribution, and thus put forward a container cargo flow distribution scheme the of the lowest system total cost under the condition of multi-hub ports.(3) Recognize the characteristics of the randomness of operating time of hub nodes in inland container transport network, study the degree of impact of randomness of node operation on selecting transport mode and route during conversion process of transport mode. Taking minimizing the total cost as the objective, calculate the probability of different optimal routes caused by randomness of conversion operation under the transport time constraints. Then based on impedance function theory to quantitatively analyze hub nodes random characteristics of the setup time and cost, the route optimization model under the objective of minimizing cost is solved. The results can provide operational decision reference for cargo owners when choosing the optimal transport route.