حانيه خواجه حسني

Nowadays, ports are acknowledged as the infrastructure for developing countries in international transportation. Playing an irreplaceable role in production, trade, and employment, port transportation, especially container transportation, is considered adequate for developing countries. With the increasing expansion of the number of container loads transported from different sources, finding an optimal method in terms of time and cost has always been of great importance. Large container ports are expanding to meet the growing demand for transportation. Container ports have to organize a large volume of containers for which various means of transportation have been provided, such as road transportation, inland waterway transportation, and rail transportation. Traditionally, road transport has had the largest share in the transport market, both in the port area and in the country's inbound areas. However, waterways and rail transportation are recognized as cost-effective and eco-friendly options. Since rail freight transportation requires expensive rail infrastructure at terminals, selecting suitable terminals for construction and equipment is of particular importance. Thus, some terminals are selected and equipped as collection points for container flows with rail transportation capability. This study seeks to design a "hub" network to locate these collection points to minimize the cost of equipping the hub and minimize the cost of moving the containers allocated to the rail section. A new mathematical model has been proposed for the rail hub positioning in this research. To eva‎luate the performance of the definitive model, the data related to Shahid Rajaei port have been used. The solution to this model determines the optimal strategy for selecting the hub locations and the rail containers' flow paths in the support areas. Furthermore, different scenarios have been designed to predict possible future conditions, and the results have been analyzed.

Haniye Khaje Hassani

Dr. Mohsen Poor Seyed Aghaei