Dynamic Network Flow Model of Empty Container Distribution

In recent years, an urgent need of building comprehensive transportation system is put forward by countries. The organization of container multimodal transportation is an important and effective method to comprehensive transportation development, but in the course, the allocation of empty container highlights many problems which cause a large number of resources waste. From the actual conditions of the railway containers shipping market and combined with the interest of the railway operation,this paper focuses on solving the dynamic allocation of empty container problem— the problem that the distribution plan changes over time, analysis the network structure of the railway empty container distribution and the dynamic behavior of the box flow. In the study, the time interval T is sampled n+1 moments that have equal distance to each other: t ₀ ,t ₁ ,...,t _n , the mathematical description of the static network flow model is given on empty container distribution in the railway network, and to the discrete nature of the dynamic process the original model is modified. In the end, an example was calculated with the model, whose results show that the dynamic network flow model of railway empty container distribution can save the total cost of the transportation.