Model of planning the route of container trains with cargo operations en route

Abstract

The article discusses a new approach to the organization of container trains based on the principles of passenger transport. The technology involves the movement of a container train on a schedule with the sale of cargo seats on the train. The train is formed at the departure station and follows the established route with stops at intermediate container terminals or stations, where the container is removed by appointment to this station and installed in the vacant place of the container by appointment to the next stations on the route. A model has been developed for forming the route of a container train with associated operations for loading and unloading containers, which allows you to find the optimal route according to the criterion of delivery time, provided that the train is loaded as much as possible on the entire route. The mathematical apparatus for constructing the model is graph theory. An algorithm for step-by-step planning of a complex of container trains on a given transport network and the established demand of regions in container transportation is proposed. The method is tested on the example of container delivery routes from China to Russia and Europe, while the considered network combines import and transit container flows with domestic and export flows formed in the Russian Federation. Given the demand matrix and the configuration of the transport network, the algorithm allowed us to create nine container trains running daily from the Eastern to Western borders of the Russian Federation, provided availability of maximum load of the container train on each section of the route. The implementation of the proposed technology will increase the competitiveness of railway container transport in both domestic and transit traffic, create conditions for containerization of additional cargo traffic by reducing delivery time and improving the quality of transport services.