Intermodal transport is widely believed to be an efficient way of organizing transportation activities because of its significant role in reducing logistics costs and emissions of air pollutants, which copes with the ever-increasing economic and environmental concerns. This paper applies the multiple streams framework (MSF) to analyze three streams (e.g., the problem stream, policy stream, and politics stream) in setting policy agenda for sustainable intermodal transport in China. By restricting the attention to the opening of the policy window and the coupling of the three streams, the motivation, process, and trend of formulating intermodal transport policy are systematically discussed. The findings show that the key to setting the policy agenda for sustainable intermodal transport in China is to strengthen collaboration among multiple interest groups, boost the national mood, and diversify the identity of policy entrepreneurs. This paper not only verifies the applicability of the MSF, but also helps us to better understand how sustainable intermodal transport policy is formulated in China, thus promoting future policy making.

For interaction between dry port and sea port, rail-sea multimodal transport is the main transportation and organization mode. The extended construction of corridors of rail-sea multimodal transport needed to be studied further. It will help to establish unified mechanism of transportation coordination, realize compatible standard transport rules, and promote the development of enterprises of sea and dry ports. Take Ningbo-Zhoushan sea port as an example, the options of multimodal transport corridors from Ningbo-Zhoushan to southwest areas are analyzed and optimized. In this paper, a TOPSIS decision model based on entropy weight is proposed, helping to effectively select the optimal multimodal transport plan. It is concluded that the best transport plan of 20 feet container from Ningbo-Zhoushan to Chengdu and Guiyang is the direct railway transport. The best transport plan of 20 feet container from Ningbo-Zhoushan to Kunming is the goods transported by rail from Ningbo-Zhoushan to Chongqing and then road from Chongqing to Kunming. Finally, it is suggested that promote the extension and radiation of port function and invest in the construction and operation of dry port.

This study provides a cargo contribution yield management model to solve the ship capacity control problem for the container liner shipping industry. We propose a new objective to optimize cargo contribution to replace the focus on total revenue or average revenue in the current research. We reflect the special characteristics of yield management in container liner shipping, and all cost items were identified and calculated to develop a new cargo contribution evaluating system. We propose a mathematical model for service route segments’ allocation distribution based on cargo contribution. We use a genetic algorithm to solve the model further with comparative analysis with actual practice. The study cultivates new ground in the current literature with a wide range of innovative applications at a practical level.

Agglomeration and building complexes are two mainstreams in modern urban development, planning and construction. The combination of agglomeration theory and building complex theory is proved to be feasible and useful through function analysis of Shanghai Maritime Service Agglomeration (SMSA) area. The findings point out that construction innovation of building complexes should comply with the integral demand of talents, companies and government. In addition to external scale effect, cost reduction, talents attraction and other agglomeration effects, function innovation of SMSA is analyzed and investment is made in four main aspects as comprehensive maritime services, resource & energy saving, environment-friendly & green transformation and environment adaptive yacht harbor operation. The assessment and discussion on the construction project witnessed a great success that social and economic benefits are abundant. The experience of SMSA is summed up to provide theoretical and practical reference for the construction of other building complexes and agglomeration areas.