EXPLORING THE ALTERNATIVE MODES OF ECO-FRIENDLY EXPRESS FREIGHT TRANSPORT

Reducing pollutant emissions of transportation is an important strategy for addressing global climate change, high-speed rail (HSR) transport, an eco-friendly mode, neither emits dust, nor emits too much COX and NOX due to the eclectic traction drive. Instead of focusing on passenger transport as most literatures refer to HSR, this paper addresses the strategy of goods movement, and chooses Beijing-Shanghai (B-S) HSR in China as a case study to explore a new freight transport mode to alleviate the increasingly serious environmental pollution problem. After predicting the intercity parcel demand and distribution based on AR-GM and Gravity model, the paper evaluates the supply capacity between cities based on operating schedule. The result shows Origin-Destination Pairs (ODPs) such as Shanghai-Jinan, Shanghai-Beijing, Beijing-Langfang suit for Mixed-train Mode and others such as Beijing-Tianjin, Shanghai-Suzhou, Shanghai-Xuzhou suit for freight-train mode. It concludes that operating high-speed rail freights on a large-scale is feasible and environmentally friendly due to its advantages of energy saving, land saving, low carbon emission. Since alternatives of modes are determined by the time distances, the scale of cities, flow volumes of intercity parcels, Freight-train mode should be adopted between cities with high economic density and large transportation capacity.