Robust Multimodal Routing for Cross-Border Logistics under Travel Time Uncertainty: A Case Study of the China-Vietnam Corridor

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jmsd.202512611

Author(s)

Xiaojuan Huang, Meng Tan*

Affiliation(s)

Guangxi Vocational Normal University, Nanning, Guangxi, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

The implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the upgrading of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area have boosted bilateral trade, straining cross-border logistics. The China-Vietnam (Nanning-Hanoi) corridor, relying on road, rail, and maritime multimodal transport, faces inefficiencies from volatile border clearance times, making traditional deterministic models ineffective and raising service level agreement (SLA) violation risks. To address this, we propose a cardinality-constrained Robust Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (RMILP) model with a "budget of uncertainty" parameter, balancing cost and schedule reliability without requiring precise probability distributions. Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) empirical experiments show rail becomes the robust optimum beyond uncertainty thresholds, providing decision support for logistics providers in transnational supply chains.

Keywords

Multimodal Transport; Robust Optimization; Cross-border Logistics; Interval Uncertainty; Route Selection

References

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