Improving the Resilience of Port–Hinterland Container Logistics Transportation Systems: A Bi-Level Programming Approach

Port–hinterland container logistics transportation systems (PHCLTSs) are significant to economic and social development. However, various kinds of unconventional emergency events (UEEs), such as natural or human-caused disasters, threaten PHCLTSs. This study aims to measure and improve the resilience of PHCLTSs. Bi-level programming models with two different lower level models are established to help PHCLTSs recover their capacity efficiently in the face of UEEs. In the upper level model, the government makes immediate recovery decisions about a damaged PHCLTS with the goal of improving the resilience of the PHCLTS. In the lower level models, truck carriers make decisions about transportation routes and freight volume in the recovered PHCLTS. They cooperate fully to pursue the maximization of total profit and are coordinated by a central authority, or they make their own decisions to pursue maximization of their own profit noncooperatively. An algorithm combining particle swarm optimization (PSO) and traditional optimization algorithms is proposed to solve the bi-level programming models. The numerical experimental results show the validity of the proposed models.

Scheduling of Yard Truck Considering Loading and Unloading Simultaneously in an Underground Container Logistics System

With the rapid growth of containers and scarce of land, the underground container logistics system (UCLS) presents a logical alternative for container terminals to better protect the environment and relieve traffic pressure. The operating efficiency of container terminals is one of the competitive edges over other terminals, which requires UCLS to be well integrated with the handling process of the storage yard. In UCLS, yard trucks (YTs) serve different handling points dynamically instead of one fixed handling point, and yard cranes (YCs) perform loading and unloading simultaneously. To minimize the total time of handling all containers in UCLS, the mixed integer programming problem is described and solved using an adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA). The convergence speed and accuracy of AGA are demonstrated by comparison with conventional genetic algorithm (GA). Additionally, AGA and CPLEX are compared with different scale cases. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to CPLEX in resulted solutions and calculation time. A sensitivity analysis is provided to obtain reasonable numbers of YTs for scheduling between handling points and the storage yard in UCLS.

Verification Simulation and Development of New Marine Transport Model

The structure of the global supply chain creates an imbalance in trade between regions of the world. It creates many empty containers on the ocean shipping route. Focusing on this problem, we will develop an empty container relocation plan for empty containers in a marine container logistics network connecting multiple bases and propose a model that minimizes the total cost of container transportation. The proposed model was verified by the simulation designed and developed in this study, and the effectiveness of the proposed model was shown by the data of the marine transportation company.

ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT STATE OF THE CONTAINER TRANSPORTATION MARKET AND WAYS OF ITS DEVELOPMENT ON THE CHINA-UKRAINE-EU ROUTE

Considering the globalization of international market relations, the article deals withthe modern market for international container traffic on the China-Ukraine-EU route. Through myresearch, it has become clear that the international rail container transportation market is evolvingrapidly and the development of railway infrastructure is rapidly becoming a lucrative investment.The potential is evident as demonstrated by the fact that China is considering rail containertransportation as an effective alternative to the traditional transportation methods such as sea- andairfreight intermodal container transportation of goods in the nearest future. There are distinctadvantages to rail container transportation, namely: versatility; mobility; distribution of containerhandling equipment; safety of cargo as well as speed of delivery. The article points out the majorproblems related to container transportation in Ukraine: poor condition of highways; deteriorationof rolling stock and railway infrastructure in general; lack of sufficient quantity and low availabilityof modern equipment at container terminals in Ukraine; a low competitive level of transport service;high level of bureaucracy on the railway and in customs clearance. In a free-market economy and,in particular, during industry restructuring, the author proposes a new approach to organizecontainer transportation in Ukraine and for the Ukrainian railway, which should reduce the costs ofrailway traffic , on the one hand, and make it more attractive to the users, thereby confirming itscompetitive advantages. The author came to the conclusion that, owing to the development of therailway infrastructure, namely the construction of a container logistics system and high-speedrailways on the territory of Ukraine, it is possible to not only reach a competitive level of transitstates on the China-EU route but also to take a preferred position as the most economical and fastest means of transit, obtaining a substantial profit and an incentive for the further development of thetransit potential of our country.

A Literature Review, Container Shipping Supply Chain: Planning Problems and Research Opportunities

This paper provides an overview of the container shipping supply chain (CSSC) by taking a logistics perspective, covering all major value-adding segments in CSSC including freight logistics, container logistics, vessel logistics, port/terminal logistics, and inland transport logistics. The main planning problems and research opportunities in each logistics segment are reviewed and discussed to promote further research. Moreover, the two most important challenges in CSSC, digitalization and decarbonization, are explained and discussed in detail. We raise awareness of the extreme fragmentation of CSSC that causes inefficient operations. A pathway to digitalize container shipping is proposed that requires the applications of digital technologies in various business processes across five logistics segments, and change in behaviors and relationships of stakeholders in the supply chain. We recognize that shipping decarbonization is likely to take diverse pathways with different fuel/energy systems for ships and ports. This gives rise to more research and application opportunities in the highly uncertain and complex CSSC environment.

Criteria for the selection of railway stations for the placement of freight terminals for handling “Cold Express” container trains

An approach to the selection of locations for compact container sites at railway stations of main railway lines for carrying out freight operations with transit container trains is described on the example of an investment project of the JSC “Russian Railways” for organizing transportation by “Cold Express” trains. To ensure the possibility of organizing the motion of container freight trains with its reception at the station directly to the loading and unloading front, certain conditions listed in the article must be met. The approach is based on the principle of minimizing costs and maintaining the operational parameters of the reconstructed railway stations while implementing the principles of container logistics. It was concluded that the reference railway station for placing on it a container terminal specializing in handling container transport trains (including “Cold Express” trains) should be a station that has a little-used electrified receiving-departure track with a length of at least 1050 m, for which there is the possibility of receiving and departure trains in all directions and near which there is an open freight area with a hard surface with the possibility of approaching trucks. Also, conditions for the unimpeded operation of loading equipment should be ensured, i. e. there should be no obstacles in the form of pedestrian bridges and overhead catenary supports. On the pilot route Vladivostok—Moscow—St. Petersburg, 18 stations were selected, located in large cities or tend towards large cities. The analysis showed that in real conditions there are no stations that fully meet these criteria, from which it was concluded that it was necessary to carry out capital-intensive measures of various volumes associated with the achievement of the necessary parameters of the stations, such as electrification or lengthening of the track, reconstruction of the station necks, arrangement of the site, car entrances, as well as other measures.

A rough set fuzzy logic algorithm for visual tracking of blockchain logistics transportation labels

The development of blockchain technology has introduced new elements to the logistics service supply chain, which provides solutions to the related problems in the development at present. In this paper, mainly the relevant contents of blockchain technology are analyzed. At the same time, the composition and application of the logistics service supply chain algorithm based on the blockchain technology are clarified. A fuzzy logic algorithm logistics based on the rough set visual image label tracking method is put forward for container transportation to address the problems in the application process. The overall visual features of the container are taken as the label feature, and the image segmentation transformation method is used to extract the features from the images collected from container logistics transportation, which has provided a basis for the logistics transportation visual tracking. The background is separated based on the key feature frames of the container images collected. The separated features are recorded, and the similarity of the features is used to complete the visual tracking of logistics transportation. The experimental results suggest that the application of the proposed method to the visual tracking of container logistics transportation can improve the accuracy of container tracking.