Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge Transport

For decades, trade between Europe and China has grown consistently, which has resulted in increased container transportation volumes. Such transportation has been dominated by sea-based options. However, over the years, an air-based mode of transport was developed, while it has lately become increas...

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Main Authors: Olli-Pekka Hilmola, Weidong Li, Yulia Panova
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
Series:Logistics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/5/1/18
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author Olli-Pekka Hilmola
Weidong Li
Yulia Panova
author_facet Olli-Pekka Hilmola
Weidong Li
Yulia Panova
author_sort Olli-Pekka Hilmola
collection DOAJ
description For decades, trade between Europe and China has grown consistently, which has resulted in increased container transportation volumes. Such transportation has been dominated by sea-based options. However, over the years, an air-based mode of transport was developed, while it has lately become increasingly popular to use railways utilizing the Trans-Siberian land bridge. This latter approach boomed amid the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. However, the railway container boom in Eurasia has deeper roots than just the COVID-19 era. As is illustrated in this research work, international trade containers (trade between Russia and other countries, mostly China) and transit containers (e.g., serving the Chinese–EU route) were already showing some significance as early as 2003–2004. In 2020, their volume was already measured in the millions, regardless of the railway data source being used. This is well above the starting period in the 1980s and 1990s, when total annual volumes were around 0.1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Container capacity has developed over the years, first being used for international trade and only lately for transit. As a preliminary comparison to air freight, the growth rate was roughly double that in the two-decade observation period.
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spelling doaj.art-8776b25d51734824aae9c1115e6b479c2023-11-21T11:28:10ZengMDPI AGLogistics2305-62902021-03-01511810.3390/logistics5010018Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge TransportOlli-Pekka Hilmola0Weidong Li1Yulia Panova2Kouvola Unit, LUT University, Tykkitie 1, FIN-45100 Kouvola, FinlandSchool of Economics & Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, ChinaDepartment of E-Commerce, Luoyang Normal University, Luoyang 471934, ChinaFor decades, trade between Europe and China has grown consistently, which has resulted in increased container transportation volumes. Such transportation has been dominated by sea-based options. However, over the years, an air-based mode of transport was developed, while it has lately become increasingly popular to use railways utilizing the Trans-Siberian land bridge. This latter approach boomed amid the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. However, the railway container boom in Eurasia has deeper roots than just the COVID-19 era. As is illustrated in this research work, international trade containers (trade between Russia and other countries, mostly China) and transit containers (e.g., serving the Chinese–EU route) were already showing some significance as early as 2003–2004. In 2020, their volume was already measured in the millions, regardless of the railway data source being used. This is well above the starting period in the 1980s and 1990s, when total annual volumes were around 0.1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Container capacity has developed over the years, first being used for international trade and only lately for transit. As a preliminary comparison to air freight, the growth rate was roughly double that in the two-decade observation period.https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/5/1/18container volumesanalysisEuropeAsiarailwaysair
spellingShingle Olli-Pekka Hilmola
Weidong Li
Yulia Panova
Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge Transport
Logistics
container volumes
analysis
Europe
Asia
railways
air
title Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge Transport
title_full Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge Transport
title_fullStr Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge Transport
title_full_unstemmed Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge Transport
title_short Development Status and Future Trends for Eurasian Container Land Bridge Transport
title_sort development status and future trends for eurasian container land bridge transport
topic container volumes
analysis
Europe
Asia
railways
air
url https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/5/1/18
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AT weidongli developmentstatusandfuturetrendsforeurasiancontainerlandbridgetransport
AT yuliapanova developmentstatusandfuturetrendsforeurasiancontainerlandbridgetransport