Foldable container in empty container repositioning in intermodal transportation network of Belt and Road Initiative: strengths and limitations

In 2013, the concept of the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (Belt and Road)’ was initiated by the Chinese government, which involves Asian, European and African continents and their adjacent seas. Logistics plays a core role in such a large framework of economy and trade. In recent years, China, European Union, and Southeast Asia pay much attention to the design and development of the intermodal transportation network towards both economic and environmental efficiency. In this paper, we propose an empty container repositioning model in the intermodal transportation network of Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative by considering both standard and foldable containers. In this model, empty containers are repositioned from the inland of the original area, such as China, to other areas of B&R Initiative related countries and regions, such as European Union and Southeast Asia. We develop a mixed integer linear programming model to determine the optimal repositioning of empty containers via the intermodal transportation network. An Artificial Bee Colony algorithm is developed to solve large size problems in practice and numerical experiments are conducted to show the efficiency of our proposed algorithm. We provide managerial insights regarding the impact on the network performance of foldable containers transportation.     

Effects of the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative on the wine import logistics of China

China’s Belt and Road (BR) initiative is expected to facilitate international trade between the countries involved. In this study, we review the special requirements of wine logistics and the market growth potential of wine consumption in China. A model minimizing generalized logistical costs is developed and applied to wine imports in China, so that the best candidate cities in which to locate transport gateways and distribution centers can be identified. Our analysis suggests that the most preferred gateways are Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong, which all have similar delivery costs. In comparison, Beijing and Chongqing have much higher delivery costs, mainly because they do not have good access to marine transport and/or efficient domestic distribution networks. For long-distance intercontinental transport of large volumes of wine, marine shipping remains the only viable delivery mode. However, wine distribution within China extensively uses air, road, and water transport. Therefore, cities with excellent multi-modal transport services are better positioned to become wine logistics gateways. Our study also highlights the importance of value-added services and good government support, which are important factors that influence distribution costs and quality.     

Sharing costs in Swedish road ownership associations

Usually transport systems, and roads in particular, are viewed as public goods. However, this is not always the case. In Sweden a large part of the road system is privately owned. Most of these privately owned roads are rural roads used by farmers and summer cottage owners, or used for forest transport. These roads are mainly provided by ownership associations.An important difference between public roads and these privately owned roads is that all investments- and maintenance decisions are made by the users themselves, who also have to pay the costs, whereas the usual case is that the owners/providers of a road-system are different agents than the users. Here the question is not how to charge the roads but how to split the costs of the roads among the users in an efficient and “fair” way.The motivation of this paper is the practical problem of how such an ownership association can divide the costs for the road network among the members in an efficient and “fair” way. The problem is treated from a game theoretical point of view, making use of the Shapley value. This means that the problem is associated with a game - a mathematical representation of the conflict situation. The Shapley value is a very important solution concept for cooperative games, like the game in this case. For games corresponding to this specific type of problems, it is shown that the Shapley value has excellent properties, such as beeing an element of the core, and beeing very easy to compute.     

西部地区公路地质灾害监测预报技术研究

“西部地区公路地质灾害监测预报技术研究”项目针对西部地区公路地质灾害危险性区划、滑坡、崩塌与泥石流监测预报及地质灾害安全管理等关键技术问题进行深入系统研究,形成了公路滑坡、崩塌与泥石流监测预报成套技术,建立了公路地质灾害数据标准,构建了“基于GIS的公路地质灾害监测预报信息系统”平台,实现了公路地质灾害监测实时分析处理和动态预报,为地质灾害综合管理提供技术支撑。     

浅谈筑路机械设备管理

文章通过分析筑路机械设备管理的背景和意义,针对目前筑路机械设备管理存在的问题,提出了相关对策,为公路施工企业提高筑路机械设备管理水平提供借鉴。     

公路养护设备物资管理工作中存在的问题及对策

随着公路养护的不断发展,设备物资管理在公路养护生产中发挥着越来越重要的作用。文章针对现行公路养护体制下,设备物资管理工作中存在的问题进行了分析,并提出了相应的对策。     

沥青混合料抗剪切验算方法

文章借鉴城市道路的抗剪验算方法和步骤,提出了适用于沥青混合料的抗剪验算方法,并采用沥青路面应力计算BISAR程序与三轴试验进行实例分析,验算了该方法的可行性。     

道路生态学在植物及动物方面的研究动态综述

基于道路建设给生态环境带来的不利影响,道路生态学成为了一门新兴学科。文章回顾了道路生态学的研究历程,详细论述了道路生态学在植物和动物方面最新的研究动态。     

论公路职工教育与公路文化建设

文章针对公路行业职工教育现状,分析公路职工教育存在的问题及原因,从提高职工综合素质、加强职工＂三种文化＂建设等方面阐述了加强公路职工教育与公路文化建设的对策。