Research on the Construction of Cross-Border Logistics Hub Network in the “Belt and Road” Countries

At present, the operational efficiency of the logistics hub network has not been taken into account in the research of constructing large-scale cross-border logistics hub network. To build a scientific and efficient cross-border logistics hub network of the “Belt and Road” Initiative, this paper designs and solves a dual-objective cross-border logistics hub location model. We innovatively design the measurement method of logistics hub network operational efficiency, and it is included in the optimization objective. By using the NSGA-II algorithm with prior knowledge to solve the model, the Pareto satisfactory solution is as follows: 38 hubs are planned to be built, the hubs are distributed along the “Belt and Road” in Asia and Europe, as well as West Africa, Oceania and Central America. Through the analysis of the results, we find that when the hub network operational efficiency is included in the optimization objective, the hub network operational efficiency increases 3.49 times for every doubling of the cost, which shows that taking the hub network operational efficiency as the optimization objective of constructing logistics hub network not only has theoretical innovation value but also can effectively improve the resource utilization rate of the logistics hub at a lower cost. The result is of great significance to guide the development of cross-border logistics along the “Belt and Road”. Section 1 introduces the research background and literature review, and points out the research content of this paper. In Sect. 2, the dual-objective cross-border logistics hub location model is constructed. Section 3 introduces the NSGA-II algorithm with priori knowledge in detail. In Sect. 4, the hub location model of the “Belt and Road” countries is solved and the solution results are analyzed. Section 5 summarizes the results of the proposed network construction of cross-border logistics hubs of the ‘'Belt and Road'’ countries, and provides important suggestions for decision makers.