High-Speed Rail Express Transshipment Hub Location and Transportation Timeliness Evaluation

The rational layout of high-speed rail (HSR) express transshipment hubs to construct an efficient HSR express service network is a critical way to improve the timeliness and reduce the transportation cost of HSR express transportation. Based on the comprehensive evaluation of potential HSR express transshipment hub cities, this paper constructs a P-median model to minimize total shipping distance for express delivery considering the city development level and policy influence and designs a hybrid intelligent algorithm for model solving. Finally, example verification and result analysis are carried out with China. From the perspective of spatial layout, the hub spatial layout of HSR express transshipment corresponds to major urban agglomerations, showing good economic and population coverage characteristics. From the perspective of transportation timeliness, HSR express transportation can significantly improve the timeliness of express transportation and reduce the express transportation time to within 24 hours for more than 90% of cities. However, due to differences in economic development and geographic location, the transport timeliness in the western and northeastern regions is much lower than that in the central and western regions. Therefore, government departments need to improve the HSR network in the western and northeastern regions as soon as possible, and strengthen the connection between the HSR network and the aviation network in these regions, to enhance the timeliness of express transportation through air-rail intermodal transport.