In the last few years, maritime transport between China and European Union has experienced huge capacity limitations and enormous delays. An alternative has emerged in railway transport. Currently, railway transport is less time consuming but is more expensive. So, there are optimisation challenges in organising transport of goods between China and European Union. Naturally, only goods in containers are transferred to railway transport as they will probably be able to bear the more expensive transport costs considering the reduction in transport time. Since 2013, China has been implementing the Belt and Road Initiative strategic plan to create a single market. One part of the plan also refers to establishing land connections, mainly by railway, between China and the European Union. There are currently four main corridors: (1) Northern, (2) Mongolian, (3) Southern, and (4) the New Silk Road. The most significant challenges can be divided into technical and organisational. The main technical challenge is the different track gauges that cause loading limits and loading gauge issues. The main organisational challenge is different customs procedures, operational rules, and administration tasks. This paper analyses the corridors used for railway transport of containers between Asia and European Union. We tackle issues regarding the technical and organisational obstacles. We have analysed container equipment, transloading equipment, railway vehicles, and terminals on the technical side. After that, we collected and analysed statistical data regarding traffic flows. We made a detailed analysis of the organisational process. According to our analysis, we have proposed organisational improvements that facilitate the overall transport of containers between China and European Union.

Belt and Road Initiative; Asia; Europe; transport; containers; railway; organisation