Locating dry ports on a network: a case study on Tianjin Port

A mathematical model for optimizing the location of dry ports is developed. The objective is to minimize the sum of the transportation costs and the fixed facility opening/closing costs. Unlike previous research on this subject, the possibility of closing existing dry ports is investigated. The dry port location problem is formulated as an integer programming and it is shown that the CFLP is a special case of our problem. The proposed model is then applied to the port of Tianjin in China and the sensitivity analysis is performed to demonstrate the robustness of the model. Our model suggests that while Tianjin Port should open some new dry ports, it might be better off closing those existing dry ports without enough throughputs. Although all parameters estimated should be uncertain in reality, sensitivity analysis shows that the results returned by the model are quite stable.