Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 2886: A Shared Container Transportation Mode in the Yangtze River (Sustainability)

Sharing economy is an emerging concept that has been implemented in several industries and has achieved huge success. Novel solutions, built on the emerging concept of sharing economy, such as Uber, Didi, Mobike, and Cargostream, offer unprecedented opportunities for maritime organizations to reform traditional water transportation. This paper presents an analysis framework of a shared container transportation mode to show the restrictions and benefit of the implementation of the concept of sharing economy in maritime transportation. As a typical inland water area in China, the Yangtze River is selected as the study area. A general shared container transportation framework is designed, including a new waiting mode, business process, and software platform system design. The new business process is developed to overcome the contradiction between the new shared container transportation mode and the traditional shipping process. The potential of the new mode is also discussed. It would contribute to the sustainability of maritime transportation with respect to energy saving.