Author(s)

Zhaoyu Qiao, Jie Xu

Corresponding Author

Jie Xu

Abstract

The rapid development of China's high-speed railway has brought a tremendous increase in transportation capacity, creating many opportunities for the optimization and upgrading of high-speed rail express logistics. However, the lack of freight-dedicated facilities such as luggage rooms and logistics channels at existing high-speed railway stations has severely restricted the large-scale operation of high-speed rail express. To address this bottleneck, this study proposes an adaptive retrofitting strategy to transform existing passenger stations into hubs. The study applies complex network theory, using indicators such as degree centrality and betweenness centrality to quantify node network characteristics. Combined with the CRITIC–variation coefficient combined weighting method, a comprehensive layout evaluation is conducted to screen out 14 candidate nodes for high-speed rail express retrofitting. On this basis, a hub-and-spoke network integrating highway connection services and high-speed railway trunk transportation is constructed. A bi-objective integer programming model is established with the objectives of minimizing total logistics cost and transportation time. The ε-constraint method based on the model is employed to obtain the Pareto frontier of the problem, and a genetic algorithm is designed for solution. The research results show that the optimal number of high-speed rail logistics hubs is 7–8. Among them, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Zhengzhou are essential retrofitting nodes, while regional nodes can be dynamically configured according to actual needs. In addition, the operation of dedicated freight trains is restricted by idle resources of passenger lines, and the retrofitting of passenger stations must consider the compatibility of line resources.

Keywords

High-speed rail express; Adaptive retrofitting; Hub-and-spoke network; Multi-objective optimization