A route option for different commodity groups in international trade: China Pakistan economic corridor

Abstract

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an extension of the silk road, is highly expected to bring the regional stability among south Asian countries by acting as a link to the silk road economic belt and the 21st-century maritime silk road. Hence, the increasingly large scale international trade makes the role of CPEC road shipments significant between supply and demand. By considering various risks involved in the CPEC’s road transportation routes, a trade-off function based on the factors: Cost $$C:{s}$$, profit $$B:{s}$$, and safety $$P:{s}$$ is set up. We establish a probability density function taking cost, profit and safety as the continuous random variables, and use their weight to capture a better trade-off policy. Thus such a trade-off function is to maximize the total satisfaction of road trading by analyzing the best appropriateness between the commodity group and the CPEC route. The methodology and results given in this paper provide an effective method for several reliable route paths among commodity groups.