PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2015, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (5): 581-588.doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2015.05.006

• 一带一路专辑 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Economically suitable areas of China's transnational container transport by land in the Silk Road Economic Belt

Huihui MO1, Jiaoe WANG2,3(), Zhouying SONG2,3   

  1. 1. China Academy of Civil Aviation Science and Technology, Beijing 100028, China
    2. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
    3. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
  • Received:2015-04-01 Revised:2015-05-01 Online:2015-06-17 Published:2015-06-17

Abstract:

China's transnational container transport by land in the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) has increased quickly, and rail is the most important method for land transport. By analyzing the current transnational container transport between China and other countries in the SREB, we first build a simulation model for multimodal transport competition, and then examine the economically suitable areas for China's transnational container transport by rail and maritime transport based on travel distance, travel time, and transport cost. The results show that Central Asia, Mongolia, and the central and eastern areas of Russia have comparative advantages for transnational container transport by rail as compared to maritime transport. To Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and the western areas of Russia, transnational container transport by rail has relative comparative advantages. Meanwhile, maritime transport (or sea-land intermodal transport) costs less than rail transport from China to most of the remaining areas of Europe and Asia.

Key words: Silk Road Economic Belt, container, land transport, rail, economically suitable area