A daily container-to-train assignment model based on the passenger transportation-like organisation strategy for railway container transportation

The passenger transportation-like organisation strategy is conducive to enhancing the market competitiveness of railway container transportation. However, many problems incurred by this strategy should be solved. This study focuses on the daily container-to-train assignment problem. Considering the fluctuations of daily container demand, an integer linear programming model is formulated to deal with the normal, congested, and insufficient demand scenarios. The objectives correspond to the three scenarios are to minimise the total transportation time of all containers, the number of remaining containers, and the number of operating trains, respectively. Finally, numerical experiments were conducted on a hypothetical railway line and the Lianyungang-Alataw pass railway corridor to demonstrate the application of the proposed approach.