Analysis on key factors of container seamless transportation operating based on system dynamics

Container multimodal transportation system is a dynamic complicated system with multiple variables and nonlinear feedback loops and influenced by some factors. The efficiency of container multimodal transportation system will decrease if these factors mismatch with each other. In order to improve the level of container multimodal transportation system, analyzing the key factors of container seamless transportation operating is essential. It was shown that four main factors influenced container seamless transportation operating, which were resource allocation, optimized organization, information technology and policy system. It presents a system dynamics approach based on the cause-and-effect analysis and feedback loop structures. And it put forwards the SD model, graph of system causality and flowchart of container seamless transportation operating. The model runs in Vensim PLE software using the data from statistics and expert scoring. The investment in every factor is chosen as the control variable for simulation to forecast the level of container seamless transportation. In despite of the same investment in every factor, but influences on container seamless transportation operating were different. Results show that resource allocation factor was the most prominent. It provides the scientific reference to the optimized operation of the container seamless transportation.