Description
Purpose: The political, legal, institutional, and organizational environment, or – in a broader context – geopolitical circumstances, are an undeniable determinant of the conditions shaping international trade. This is especially true in the case of trans-Eurasian railway transport that connects several, often landlocked countries located between Europe and China. In this paper we track changes in the volumes of goods transported cross-border by railway between 2008 and 2022, a period when the development of international trade was accompanied by events that had a nature of factors affecting international trade flows.Design/methodology/approach: Cross-border cargo flows between 22 countries bound to the Eurasian railway system 2008-2022 are sampled from publicly available resources. As the resulting Origin-Destination (O-D) tables resemble a sparsely connected directed network with edges weighted by volume of cargo transported in tons, we apply dedicated network analysis methods to characterize its develop-ment over time.
Findings: So far, our findings are solemnly based on visual inspection of the O-D tables over time. How-ever, we see, that past crisis of global pandemic 2020-2023, and deteriorating political relation-ships with Russian Federation since 2014 showed a lasting impact on Eurasian railway flows until recently. On contrary, China`s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) relying on container block trains seems to be a driving force since 2011.
Research limitations: The availability of data turned out to be a certain limitation. Not all railway administrations publish them, and some use different reporting methods like number of cross-border connections expressed in the number of trains without considering structure of goods. Using data from various sources and bringing them to a common denominator allowed to obtain a coherent and harmonized base data.
Period | 20 Jun 2024 → 21 Jun 2024 |
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Event title | CSCMP European Research Seminar 20024 |
Event type | Conference |
Location | Warsaw, PolandShow on map |
Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- Eurasian railway network
- resilience
- network analysis
- international trade flows
- geopolitical environment