Keywords: low-carbon;highway freight transportation; semi-trailer swap transportation; network
Abstract
The transport industry of Chinais facing a hard on how toreduce carbon dioxide emissions at the same time as transports is increasing. Wehave focused here on the solution that is most feasible for short-termimplementation: founding low-carbon freight transportation networks by developingsemi-trailer swap transportation. The study is carried out in two aspects:Firstly, in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at the same time as the freighttransportation volume is increasing, promoting the transport efficiency byreconfiguring transportation network is attainable. It’s essential to analyzeexactly the spatial distribution of transportation demand so as to replan thetransportation networks effectively. Theoretically qualitative analysis andempirical works on Shandong Province are carried outto find the relationship between industry and highway freight transportation. Secondly,since semi-trailer swap transportation mode has some technical and economicadvantages which accord with easing climate and environmental issues, semi-trailerswap transportation networks are employed to found a low-carbon freighttransportation system. A presumedly configuration of the network is shown basedon the empirical works on Shandong Province.
1 Introduction
The industrialized countries of the world reached an agreement toreduce global greenhouse gas emissions in Kyoto(in Japan)in 1997. The Kyoto Protocol was signed and emission targets were set to reduceemissions by 5.2 percent compared to the levels in 1990, by the years2008-2012. Climate and environmental issues are coming increasingly into focusand there is no longer any industry that can afford to disregard them. Alltogether the light industry and heavy industry sectors have tried to reduce greenhousegas emissions in China.In contrast, as a result of continuous increases in road transportation, the transportationsector is currently responsible for an obvious ratio of China’s total carbon dioxideemissions. The transport industry of Chinais facing a hard to solveproblem: how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at the same time as the numberof transports is increasing drastically?
It is clear that the transportation sector isresponsible for increasing carbon dioxide emissions in China, and that within thetransportation sector, it is specifically passenger cars and freight transportationby highway that account for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
