Transport service selection and routing with carbon emissions and inventory costs consideration in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative.

• A capacitated multigraph is presented that defines services (directed arcs) by transport mode, departure date, transit time, cost, distance and carbon emissions. • A Capacitated Multi-Commodity Flow Service Selection Problem is proposed to help shippers to choose transport mode, routes and the specific departure vehicle, train or ship. • This study analyses the regional patterns of CR Express versus maritime shipping under the dual impact of inventory cost and carbon emissions. • This paper provides some suggestions for shippers to route cargos, for operators to improve services and for government to determine carbon tariffs. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) entails investments to improve overland (rail) transport between Europe and China. This paper introduces a microscopic Multi-Commodity Flow Service Selection Problem for freight transport under the BRI and provides a decision tool for shippers to make door-to-door service plans. The minimizing objective function considers transportation costs, in-transit inventory costs, and carbon emissions. A series of sampled data of each provincial region of China are collected from Chinese multimodal transport operators. Results show that inland regions are strongly attracted to the rail mode for shipments to Europe. However, the "last mile" (including "first mile") transport from the shipper to the long-haul transport terminal strongly influences this choice, and carbon emissions are strongly influenced by the available last mile transport links. Under the dual impact of in-transit inventory and carbon emission costs, regions that prefer rail to maritime are much further east than suggested by previous literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]