Search

Since the Ice Silk Road (ISR) was put forward, its development prospect has become the focus of academic circles. To study the influence mechanism of 'fairness preference' on the trade cooperation of countries along the ISR, this paper constructs the trade cooperation network based on the bilateral trade data of countries along the ISR, establishes the theoretical model of network game based on Rabin model, and uses the simulation method to test the model. The results show that: (1) the sense of national cognitive fairness does have an impact on the trade cooperation of the ISR; (2) the 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' strategy is not an advantage strategy in the trade cooperation of the ISR; (3) the most significant factor affecting the trade cooperation of countries along the ISR is the neighbor node in the trade network and the social public opinion pressure of cooperation in the network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issues of port investment, considering the mutual selection process of the industries planned for transfer and recipient countries with location advantage, along the Maritime Silk Road (MSR). We propose a method for determining the production scale of different industries in each country by analyzing location advantage, the regional imports of commodities from each recipient country, the import transportation route scheme, the port network structure, and the port investment scheme along the MSR. This method is constructed on the basis of a hub-spoke network model, a location model, and a matching game model. We select 14 countries along the MSR as a case study and treat them as the supply zones of commodities, while six continents are taken as the demand zones. The numerical analysis show that Sihanoukville Port in Cambodia, Port Klang in Malaysia, and Mundra Port in India will become hub ports, and that 81, 41, and 24 container berths will be constructed at each of these harbors, respectively. Whether a port will become a hub depends on the industrial growth potential in its direct hinterland, its geographical advantages in the global shipping network, and its relative spatial relationship to other hub ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To elucidate the impact of online car-hailing (OCH) on traditional taxi services and in producing structural changes to urban taxi markets in China, we propose a model based on the market access rules and business models of the two modes that analyzes their interactions in the following arenas: fleet size, passenger waiting time, service level, and driver income. Then, we build a nested logit model to predict the modal splits and market shares for four travel modes (online car-hailing, traditional taxi, metro, and bus). Taking Ningbo as an example, we estimate the changes in the number of OCH vehicles, the modal splits of the four travel modes, and the new equilibrium in urban taxi service markets. We show that OCH puts significant pressure on the traditional taxi market due to the positive feedback between OCH fleet size and its service quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioblastoma, a common malignancy of the central nervous system, is the most destructive type of brain cancer. Clinical treatment remains a major challenge due to high infiltrative growth and the presence of the blood brain barrier (BBB). Therefore, advanced nanoplatforms that can efficiently cross the BBB and target brain tumours are highly desired. Compared with the targeting efficiency of single ligand nanoplatforms, dual targeting nanoplatforms may lead to better and controllable malignant cell selectivity. In this study, based on our previous research of branched ligands, we finally determined to use tri-branched glucose and two-branched biotin as targeting molecules, and in order to explore the synergetic-targeting capabilities and the mutual influence between the length of the two ligands, we designed three kinds of two-branched biotin ligands with a different linker and co-modified with the tri-branched glucose ligands on the surface of liposomes. The results of in vivo and in vitro experiments showed the (Glu3+Bio2)-2-Lip can exert the greatest synergistic targeting ability. The application of branched ligands, the dual-targeting design concept, and the exploration of the interaction between the chain lengths of the two ligands have brought new ideas and new methods for the targeted therapy of glioma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce quaternary and ternary diagrams to analyze temporal-spatial changes in the supply and demand shares of marine products, respectively. Subsequently, we build a marine product supply selection model to calculate the quantities of marine products furnished by supply channels and estimate the demand for marine products in China's three coastal areas. These are used to demonstrate the supply gap of marine products in China before we optimize and adjust the supply scheme of marine products for China. The results show that China's coastal areas import large volumes of fish, crustaceans and molluscs. In the Bohai Bay Rim, the domestic supply of marine products (except for fish and crustaceans) is greater than imports, while in the Yangtze River Delta and Southern China coastal areas, the domestic supply of all marine products is greater than imports. Domestic channels thus cannot fully satisfy coastal demand for marine products. In order to meet the demand, China should enlarge its imports from Europe and Asia, encourage ocean-going fishing vessels to directly transport all harvests back to China, and strengthen fishing port construction so as to promote the development of China's seafood imports and pelagic fisheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the literature on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has the factors that directly influence the transport and logistics. The relevant literature has been collected systematically since the BRI was initiated in 2013. We adopt a content analysis methodology involving a four-step process. It can be found that firstly, more and more papers on the BRI have been published these years and the influence of BRI on transport and logistics can be summarized into three main perspectives, namely, the changes of the politics & policy, the changes of the environmental dimensions, the direct influence on transport and logistics; secondly, the topics and adopted methodology have been summarized, and it can be found that the percentage papers using quantitative analysis increases over the years; thirdly, percentage of papers with optimistic attitude on the BRI has been increasing since 2013 and compared with authors with affiliations in China, authors with non-Chinese affiliations are more likely to show pessimistic attitudes; fourthly, the research gaps have been summarized, which illustrates future research direction or topics and can promote the studies on transport and logistics considering the influence of the BRI and provides theoretical basis for BRI's development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background and contents of the Special Issue (SI) of "Integration and Cooperation in International Transportation" are summarized. The aim of the SI is the attraction and presentation of high-quality papers concerning this topic. "COOPERATION" and "INTEGRATION" are two promising topics of the published 8 papers. The beneficiaries of SI include academic researchers, shipping companies, railway companies, airline companies, terminal operators, and policy-makers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal short-term cruise products are matched with Chinese consumer demand characteristics. Launching coastal short-term cruise products can help local Chinese cruise companies change the monopoly status of foreign cruise companies in China. This paper builds a two-stage optimization model to provide a decision-making method for local Chinese cruise companies. The first stage determines the itinerary scheme, with the goals of minimizing the cost and maximizing the potential demand. The second stage determines the cabin price, with the goal of maximizing the profit of the cruise company. The model considers the competition of cruise products and their alternative products based on consumer preferences. In the case study, we take Dalian Port as the home port to do the numerical analysis. The results show that coastal cruise products with journey times of 2–3 days have the highest market penetration and are more profitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception in 2013, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a focal issue in international transportation and global logistics because infrastructure development and economic and transport corridors have been influencing connectivity among countries along the Belt and Road. This paper aims to conduct a literature review on logistics, supply chains, and transport (LST) field in the context of the BRI since 2013. The papers for the literature review were collected from SCI/SSCI/SCIE and Chinese SSCI journals. This paper applies Text Mining to draw key research topics and research networks of the literature and then makes a comparative study between selected 190 English and 198 Chinese papers published in 2013–2020. This paper also investigates and compares the methods applied to those papers. The findings help researchers understand research trends in the LST field and contribute to highlighting research insights for further studies in the LST field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a programme model with equilibrium constraints for decision-making regarding a multihub port location in West Africa. To consider the high security risks associated with inland areas of West Africa and the poor reliability of inland transport systems, this model takes the lowest regional generalised transport cost as the optimisation goal and simultaneously optimises three features: the choice of ports to invest in, the port expansion plans and the inland safe-corridors (railway lines) design. By introducing a few complementary conditions, the model can reasonably portray the influence of a large number of shippers' noncooperative game relationships on the location of the hub ports. To solve this model, a hybrid active set algorithm embedded with the Frank-Wolfe method is proposed. Using the above model and algorithm, we designed an optimal investment quota-setting and investment plan for the Chinese government involving the hub port construction in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper integrates empty container reposition with container shipping network design considering the container life stages. A mixed-integer linear programming model is built to determine the liner shipping network, the initial launch ports of new containers, the ports for scrapping obsolete containers, the empty container reposition scheme and the containers of different life stages being used for a specific voyage. A case study is done by taking liner shipping among China, Japan and South Korea, Southeast Asia, Europe and the US as an example. The results show that over 93% of new containers are put into use in China while 63% of old containers are scrapped in Europe or the US, and 73% of containers used for packing cargoes from China to the US are those at the Decline Stage or the Exit Stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the best container ship size in a service is determined mainly by the liner operator, considering only the economies of scale of ships. Its external diseconomies to the ports and shippers are usually not considered in the decision-making process, which may reduce the overall efficiency and lead to global nonoptimality. This study incorporates the cost to the shipping companies at the main lines, ports, and feeder services, as well as the external costs to shippers and ports in a hub-and-spoke network, and determines the best ship size and the number of weekly services to minimize the overall costs. The external cost to the shippers in the feeder ports is assumed to be proportional to the feeder cost, and a sensitivity analysis is provided. The maximum container ship size is estimated according to different levels of freight demand. A numerical analysis shows that the optimal size should be smaller than the current biggest container ships in service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘first come first served’ (FCFS) strategy usually adopted by air express companies does not consider delivery time tolerances and induces underuse of some facilities. This study relaxes the time tolerances and tackles the issue of parcel deliveries and transport network design for an express delivery company. In other words, it determines simultaneously the route loops of company-owned cargo aircraft, the amount of cargo space chartered for each link and the parcel delivery paths. Using a case study in which parcels must be delivered between 14 cities served by the SF Air Express Company, we find that FCFS is not the best approach for minimizing costs and that express companies can optimize both their delivery schemes and networks subject to some relaxed time tolerances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foreign trade transport accessibility (FTTA) of Mainland China to overseas regions is studied in terms of the shipping connectivity and achievable market scales. First, the concept of FTTA is defined. Second, the path choice behavior of shippers is analyzed, and a method to measure FTTA is proposed. Last, with 357 cities in Mainland China as the origins and eight overseas regions as the destinations, the FTTAs from origins to destinations are evaluated. The study is helpful to acquaint decision-makers with the FTTA’s spatial distribution and to offer information by which China can expand its export-oriented industry and optimize its port and shipping industries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The pursuit of better performance by the local government can influence the investment decision-making related to port expansion. This paper compares the ceilings at which the port enterprise and the local government would stop making investments. To achieve this, the benefits to the port enterprise and the local government are measured over a given time period. An empirical study investigating how a port would respond if a rival port uses a type of capacity investment strategy is conducted for two major ports in Liaoning. The time at which the local government and the port enterprise would stop making investments and the final equilibrium are developed using the data from 2010. From the empirical results, it was found that investment in port capacity contributes greatly to the local government’s performance. Meanwhile, different investment ceilings are discovered for the port enterprise and the local government. This research is meaningful for discussing the institutional relationship between the local government and the port enterprise in China’s current decentralized port governance system. This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Port expansion mechanism in the context of political achievement of local government: a special phenomenon in China’ presented at International Association of Maritime Economists 2012 Taipei Conference during 5th September –8th September. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Thousands of manufacturing firms clustering in China's coastal regions show signs of relocation in inland provinces because of the disadvantages of location condition and laborer's quality of life (QOL) since the opening policy. Also the signs will induce redistribution of export freight flow of seaports. This paper intends to explore the interaction relationship between firm's relocation and laborer's workplace choices from a micro-decision level. First, based on the discrete choice theory, the choice behavior models of manufacturing firms and laborers are built. Second, taken the wages as bond, the interactive equilibrium model of firm's relocation and laborer's workplace choice is built. Finally, the 'communication equipment, computers, and related electronic equipment manufacturing' in pan-Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of China is taken as an example. Under equilibrium situation, in parallel with the backflow of outside laborers, the manufacturing firms will relocate in inland provinces either with fluent laborers or nearby coastal developed provinces, and the export cargo of seaports in PRD region will be largely attracted to other seaports. The results are verified with the practical activities of Foxconn in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the seaworthiness characteristics of the waterways and the container origin-destination (OD) flows between the riverside ports on the Yangtze River, China, this article aims to build an integer programming model to optimize the container liner network on the Yangtze River by minimizing the total transportation cost. The model can determine the shipping routes, calling ports, calling sequences, number and type of the used ships. In order to make the model usable, we formulate the waterway’s impedance function and designs a genetic algorithm (GA) based on Frank–Wolf method. In the optimized network, the big ships are used in the midstream of the River while the small ones are adopted on both ends. It differs from the current ship allocating principle by which the small ones run in the upstream while the big ones run in other segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unique commercial operation in China that delivers express parcels within the storage compartments (belly-holds) of highway passenger coaches is introduced. A new delivery mode, called ‘direct + transfer’ delivery, is proposed. On the basis of this mode, a model to optimize the delivery path is constructed by considering the parcel arrival patterns, coach departure times, and belly-hold capacity in the initial origin. The solution algorithm is designed. In a case study, the probability distribution function of the parcel arrival pattern is fitted, and the delivery paths of parcels from a city to other cities in a region in China are calculated and analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the problem of recovering berth and quay crane (QC) schedules in container terminals when disruptions occur after a subset of operations has been processed. Firstly, models for simultaneous optimization of berth and QC schedules are developed. Then, two strategies, namely, QC rescheduling strategy and berth reallocation strategy are proposed to tackle disruptions and recover the berth and QC schedule, and models for the two strategies are developed respectively. To solve the disruption recovery models, algorithms based on local rescheduling and tabu search are designed. Finally, numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the validity of the proposed model and algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective prediction of bus arrival time is central to many advanced traveler information systems. This article presents support vector machines (SVM), a new neural network algorithm, to predict bus arrival time. The objective of this paper is to examine the feasibility and applicability of SVM in vehicle travel time forecasting area. Segment, the travel time of current segment, and the latest travel time of next segment are taken as three input features. Bus arrival time predicted by the SVM is assessed with the data of transit route number 4 in Dalian economic and technological development zone in China and conclusions are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]