Contemporary Logistics Railway Refrigeration Transport Cost

Contemporary Logistics 12 (2013) 1838-739X
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Contemporary Logistics
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Research on the Computation of Station to Station Based on
Railway Refrigeration Transport Cost
Zhuqiang QIU , Yunyang ZHANG
School of Transport and Transportation Engineering, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha
410114, Hunan, P.R.China
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Traffic and transportation,
Railway,
Refrigerated transportation,
Cost computation
Aiming at some shortages existing in computing methods for refrigerated transportation cost,
this paper redesigns the operating process by figure illustration, according to the computation
methods for the transportation cost between railway freight stations, taking three kinds of
refrigerated vehicles frequently used in current railway system for example, this paper
establishes good categories-based station to station transport cost structures respectively for
the first time. Furthermore, this paper classifies the cost items in the above model into two
principle classes, due to the complexity of refrigerated transportation cost structure, this
paper presents ABC (activity based cost) as an available computing method and necessity
analysis is carried out in the last part.
© ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
1 Synopsis of Railroad Goods Traffic Cost
1.1 Implication of railroad goods traffic cost
The railroad goods traffic cost refers to all kinds of cost for railway enterprise completing each unit goods on transportation. Traffic
cost behavior refers to the basic changing rule of railroad goods traffic cost. The transportation output ratio which the goods traffic
cost usually counts in the time the enterprise to disburse the overall cost and the enterprise completes to indicate that generally with
certain amount of time the overall cost shares according to the unit volume of the circular flow determined, measuring unit is
Yuan/ton kilometer [1,2].
1.2 Cost calculation method for railroad cargo special transportation
The railroad goods traffic cost may be divided into three kinds: the cargo category transportation cost, the point-to-point
transportation cost of transportation process from the initial to the final station, the complete bikes, peddle car and containerized
traffic cost and so on.

Corresponding author.
E-mail: [email protected]
English edition copyright © ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
DOI:10.5503/J.CL.2013.12.001
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1.2.1 Cargo category transportation cost
The cargo category transportation cost which cause the railway transportation enterprise to the cargo variety classification
computation, it is the overall target which the inspection different cargo category transportation consumes, the computation entirely
cargo category transportation cost, is advantageous in the analysis cargo category transportation amount constitution change to the
freight transportation cost influence, provides the basis for the formulation transportation charges as well as certain economical
technical decision-making, has following two kind of computational method [3]: Gross weight ton kilometer of average outlay
computation method and car kilometer and total specific weight kilometer average outlay computation method.
The car kilometer and total specific weight kilometer average outlay computation method not only reflects the different cargo, each
movement ton kilometer should spread gross weight ton kilometer of situation, also reflects a corresponding car kilometer situation,
this method is not very precise, merely when rapid calculation bulk cargoes transportation cost is used. In addition, the computation
cargo category based transportation cost computation methods do not have the expenditure rate law according to the hauling
operation process sub-item computation method.
1.2.2 Stand from the initial starting point terminal points transportation process point-to-point transportation cost
It is a kind of unit cost product transportation in the entire transportation process in the way of actual labor expenditure target, it is
possible to carry on each kind of economic activity analysis and the operating decisions, and as formulation transportation charges
basis. It is necessary to calculate each kind of operation cost of operation separately according to the work link, then carry on
accumulation added together, according to the different computation request. And calculate the different scope, the link, the different
category average cost, the variable cost and the entire cost, and use various units to change the disbursement as well as the work
required in target formula to compute transportation costs between different stations.
1.2.3 Complete bikes, the peddle car and containerized traffic cost
It defers to three kinds difference to ship the way of computation the goods traffic cost, to formulate the vital significance with the
adjustment transportation charges as well as the reasonable organization goods traffic.
1.3 Railroad goods traffic cost accounting present situation analyses
The railway transportation cost depends on the question difference and the computation time, and is divided into the regular cost and
the non-regular cost. The regular cost is according to the stipulation count-down cost, the comprehensive average transportation cost
which including the entire journey and Railroad Bureau calculates, mainly reflects various operations unit average transportation
productive consumption situation. The non-regular cost is mainly used to solve certain temporary problem or the cost accounting
which carries on for the specific technical economy goal, carries on the related cost benefit analysis and so on. The use material is
mainly related statistical and the final accounts material also includes the ad hoc survey and the supplement computation material,
which can be divided into three operation cost methods that are the expenditure rate law and the direct computation method and other
three kinds [4-6].
At present, in the rail transportation system, the most commonly used cost accounting method is the expenditure rate law. It
decomposes the cargo space displacement's final cost of many related transportation enterprise’s middle cost, calculates the camera
vehicle kilometer, the car kilometer and so on to have the cargo nature target, then the computation cargo's variable cost, then
through these intermediate goods' combination, sums up the corresponding final cargo the variable cost, the identical target's variable
cost summation dividing target total quantity namely obtains this target the expenditure rate [7,8]. Few researchers carry out railway
transport computation method, existing studies focus on refrigerated environment optimization for specified goods [9-11].
2 Railway Refrigerated Transport Costing Method
The railway transport enterprise economic system is restricted by long-term plan implementation. Pay no attention to the cost of
information collection, which causes the financial sector do not have the statistical information reported is accurate and timely.
Meanwhile, during the actual costing, the flexibility is not strong, in the whole context of widespread road "for a major account", and
considered "average account" of such rigid accounting methods, not only do not reflect the cost of railway transportation ent erprises
earnings accurately, but also is not conducive to long-term strategic decisions of enterprises. In the same time, the price of freight
transport can not provide a reliable basis for the development, so that constraints can not find the key to business costs, let alone costcutting ways.
There is a lack of transport, equipment, facilities in refrigerated cargo transport process. The cost structure is simple, cost accounting
is relatively rough, often do not reflect the actual cost of the entire carriage costs compared with road freight transport, although the
unit price is lower more seriously, not according to market changes timely adjustment rate, it is difficult to ensure merchandise
refrigerated transport quality requirements [12,13]. Stand point of the railway transport enterprises, whether special cost accounting
method, or the current cost accounting method most commonly used relatively crude, and not be able to more accurately reflect the
actual cost, not to mention the transportation companies to provide short-term decision-making and pricing information on floating
support. Customer's perspective, they are more inclined to periodic or seasonal price fluctuations, it is obviously difficult to reconcile
the contradiction between a pair. As the traditional mode of refrigerated transport operations there are many gaps and inadequacies,
which is necessary to establish a new customer demand for stronger mobility processes. This article will be relatively isolated in the
three previous special cargo accounting method effective integration, make new Refrigerated Transport accounting model, making
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the cost of accounting results to reflect the different time span, different categories and vehicles between the actual cost of point to
point, different from the traditional to ton-kilometers as the unit of "average account."
3 The Workflow Analysis of Railway Refrigerated Transport Processes
According to the current railway enterprise refrigerated transportation situation, for easy management and organization of the basic
requirements of refrigerated transport, the paper designs new refrigerated transport processes, as shown in Figure 1.
4 Based on the Vehicles and Goods Category of Point to Point Transport Cost
Structure Model
Based on existing accounting methods, according to different categories of goods and type of vehicles used to calculate station to
station, the units of goods between the refrigerated transportation costs, refrigerated transport cost accounting in accordance with the
types of vehicles can be divided into mechanical refrigerator car, refrigerator with ice box cars and major types, based on this, this
article focus on three categories point to point costs.
At present, due to cold plate refrigerated vehicles and containers used in rail transport refrigeration, this article does not compute its
cost in detail. Vehicle freight cost accounting is according to statistics on a regular basis. Through the traditional method of statistical
analysis on this basis, according to the conditions of transport of perishable goods, specific requirements, multiply the corresponding
impact factor. LTL freight unit cost is closely related to the volume, which will focus on analysis in this paper.
Cargo
Carriers
Yes
Whether precooling?
No
Use the model?
Pre-cold
Mechanical Refrigerator Car
Bicycle
identified
or
groups
Determine
the
loading program
Box car
Ice refrigerator car
Program to determine
ice
Transportation cost
accounting
Insulation measures to determine
Sign transport
agreement
Transport
Figure 1 The basic process of railway refrigerated transport
4.1 Mechanical refrigerator car
Based on the mechanical reefer transport cost accounting, mechanical freezers can be divided into the following 11 cost items:
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CkJl ( i , j )  ckJlz  ckJlj  ckJlx  ckJls
 ckJlh  ckJlr  ckJlzx  ckJly  ckJlb
 ckJdf  ckJlf
CkJl (i , j )
(1)
: Represents K units of goods that use the model m of ice sent in refrigerated car from starting point to terminal point to the
mechanical reefer cost units, unit cost per / ton.
ckJlz : Represents a unit of goods transport organization in the middle of the cost of the station, which is divided into non-harmonic
transit.
ckJlj
: Represents a unit cost of goods in transit maintenance costs;
ckJlh : Represents a unit of good in transit refrigeration custody during the related resource costs, mainly refers to electric power and
refrigerants, or refrigeration;
ckJlr : Represents a unit of goods in transit cost crew costs;
ckJlzx : Represents unit costs of loading and unloading of goods;
ckJlb : Represents repair line for the new cargo fee charged by the railway construction unit costs;
ckJly
: Represents the unit goods pre-cooling costs;
ckJdf
ckJlf
: Represents passing electrification of units of the electrification of the additional tax goods;
: Additional unit cost of the goods that are mainly based on goods in transit means keeping the probability of difficulty and
damage to cargo-specific unit costs charged by the goods. The cost of items which can be placed in the insurance fee can also be
individually charged, are listed here as a separate cost item.
4.2 Ice refrigerator car
Based on the cost structure of ice refrigerator car and machinery compared to the cost of item less crew members, the main difference
is in the unit cost of goods in the way of resources. Unit goods station to station cost accounting is listed as follows:
CkPn ( i , j )  ckPnz  ckPnj  ckPnx  ckPns  ckPnh
(2)
 ckPnzx  ckPny  ckPnb  ckPnjh  ckPdf  ckPnf
CkPn (i , j )
: Represents K units of goods that use the model m of ice sent in refrigerated car from starting point i to terminal point j to
the mechanical reefer cost unit (unit cost per / ton).
ckBmh
: Assessed unit cost of thermal insulation material and human resources capital;
Other items of similar mechanical reefer, is not explained in this paper.
4.3 Box car
Comparing boxcar-based transportation with the mechanical refrigerator car, the ice is much lower cost, the cost structure is simpler.
However, due to the relatively simple cold storage conditions and the damage probability of in-transit cargo and the actual carrier
process, we should improve the cost-plus items, restrictions on transportation of perishable goods wagon shed. At the same time, its
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use has the potential to improve the boxcar's opportunity cost, the cost structure should be listed separately, and the basic cost
structure is reflected in the following formula:
CkPn ( i , j )  ckPnz  ckPnj  ckPnx  ckPns  ckPnh
 ckPnzx  ckPny  ckPnb  ckPnjh  ckPdf  ckPnf
CkPn (i , j )
(3)
: Represents K units of goods that use the model n of box car from starting point i to terminal point j and resulted in
mechanical reefer cost unit;
ckPnh : Assessed unit cost of thermal insulation material and human resources capital;
ckPnjh
: As the alternative tool for shipping perishable goods.
5 Summary and Classification of Cost Items
The railway refrigerated transportation costs have been a special cost accounting recently. Cost model which be given in the previous
section are basically made up of three types of vehicles of the cost structure of point to point, but the cost will spend more timeconsuming on solving alone. In order to get the convenience of cost accounting, the traditional fixed and variable cost classification
method has been set for improvement. This method is based on the general's rail freight ton kilometer cost, this model is divided into
two categories: base cost and additional cost. Base cost items are shown in Table 1, base cost occurs in various nodes generally, the
three types of units required for shared costs and cost accounting entries, by locomotive, electrical services, car services, vehicles,
public works departments and independent accounting.
Table 1 Base cost items in railway frozen transportation
Maintenanc
e
Department
Telecommunication
Department
Public Works
Department
Vehicle
department
services
Vehicles (including
aircraft
Protection
Section) Department
Crew costs
/ Ton-km
The cost of line
equipment / Ton-km
New
lines
cost/ton-km
Shelf boxcarloss cost
/ ton-km
Fuel cost /
ton-km
Consuming electricity
/ t (the time in the
annual
settlement
shared equally)
Power-consuming
machinecar insurance
cost / ton-km
The old line
cost / ton-km
Freight organizations
cost/ton (passenger and
cargo terminals) shelf
boxcarloss cost / tonkm
Freight organizations
cost/ton
(District
Station)
Freight organizations
cost / ton (marshalling)
Machine
vehicle
insurance loss cost /
ton-km
Locomotive
loss
cost/
ton-km
Ice vehicle wear and
tear cost/ton-km
According to the different happening, locations of the cost above unit can be divided into two types in use and nodes based on actual
mileage of transportation, and transportation capacity will be converted into its unit cost per ton, and added to the refrigerated
transportunit cost point to point. The remaining cost of entry is not occurred during all the sections and places. Accounting difficulty,
the paper additional costs, and eight major items as follows:
1) Pre-cooling costs
Cold storage occurs at the departure station, whether the goods need pre-cooling depends on the character of goods, while the
changes with the seasons change, which should be determined through the annual statistical accounting of the pre-cooling
requirements of different categories of goods and the pre-cooling unit weight cost.
2) The cost of single and double track
Single section of the unit transportation cost is generally higher than double track. Railway administration is based on the actual
situation to determine the cost of single and double-track section coefficient, two lines of mileage based on the unit cost for whole
process from the origin to the final arrival.
3) Additional costs in electrical section
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As a separate sub-item, unit cost is determined through regular surveys, and it can be used as an additional entry tax in the form of
lists, based on the actual line segments, which determines the rates of different segments.
4) Additional costs in-transit station organization
As the three types of vehicles required and the difficulty of different transportation organizations, the average cost should be
determined based on the cost factor, the general difficulty of the order of machine protection cars, trucks and ice-cooled refrigerator
car, the unit cost factor resulted from different type of stations.
5) Insurance
Based on the basic category of goods (including frozen, chilled and cooling) and the value of different goods determine the premium
rate.
6) Storage of goods in transit transport additional costs
The use of three transport methods depending on the transport of goods in transit requirements, and the difficulty of different storage
conditions should be based on the nature of the goods and the use of different types of vehicles to determine the difficulty and cost
factor based on statistical information can also be insured to determine the appropriate rate.
7) Ice costs
It is exclusive cost item of ice refrigerator car and based on operations to provide ice by the unit cost and number of accounts by the
means of ice.
8) Insulation costs of boxcar
It is determined by loading conditions of different thermal insulation materials for different requirements, each time loading should
be shared equally to the unit to the cargo. It shows that additional cost is more than the based cost, regular survey cycle, and
additional costs through cost-based division, refrigerated transport unit cost structure has been further refined, accounting for an
additional temporary key is to obtain the unit cost. Basically, these two cost sub-items reflect the nature of the goods and vehicles
based on the type of point to point between the costs, but for their raw data collection is difficult, it is necessary with the new cost
accounting methods of accounting.
6 ABC Cost Accounting Method
According to the costing model and the cost from the above classification, for vehicles, loading point to point type and category of
goods between the unit cost to reflect the occurrence of certain statistical cycle in various of transport nodes and routes of the actual
cost for rail transport that refrigerated railway transport enterprises to provide good support for pricing; however, the model covers
the costs of operating areas and departments between very diverse place, and conventional rail freight costing and accounting
methods simply reflect different aspects of refrigerated transportation costs.
In view of additional cost items objectively difficult to reflect the cost of refrigerated transport unit. The paper based on the
traditional cost accounting methods introduces ABC method. The basic idea is: the introductions of intermediaries called activities
consume resources, product consumption activities; production leads to the production cost, the cost of the activities leads to the
occurrence. Resources to support the activities of the sources of costs and expenses; cost object is to organize the implementation of
the operational purpose; activities appropriate to achieve the objectives of the work of consumption of resources; cost indicator is a
tool to quantify the resources and activities.
ABC method has two advantages: Firstly, the cost is reflected in the activities of control and process control, downturn of the railway
refrigerated transportation market, the increasingly narrow profit margins, supply wastage recently, while the refrigerated rail
transport costs accounting is a non-regular special transportation costs coupled with long-standing efforts of their research; Second,
ABC cost accounting method can define the source of cost, especially the special cargo company’s specific cost. And ABC method
focuses on improving processes in weak links and compresses refrigerated transportation costs.
According to this accounting method, it contributes a lot to help rail transport enterprises in the whole process of delivering goods
from the carrier to monitor, based on the more advanced communications and network systems. Real-time information gathering not
only help the cost accounting but also help the company control of the state of the carriage of goods, and improve the quality of the
transportation of perishable goods, make the long-term communication between information sharing platform.
7 Conclusion and Discussion
The traditional railway refrigerated transport processes are too cumbersome and can not reflect the special nature of refrigerated
transport, directly resulting of the low level refrigerated transport services. Given the current downturn of market refrigerated
transport, this designed model of the cost structure of transport refrigeration unit is to provide pricing support. Unit cost based on
vehicle type is also conducive to a comparative analysis of related companies, it develops the future reference for new vehicles.
There is a long time for traditional cost accounting methods of transportation system to be put into use, despite there are many
shortcomings, but many cost items not related to traffic can only be accounted through the traditional expenditure rate law, this paper
introduces the ABC method to account for the cost of some key and strong random items to help the understanding of relevant
departments and enterprises cost-effective.
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Based on the new and perishable goods transport processes, this paper presents a cost accounting system and related theory, the
original data collection is so difficult that there is no such analysis. In future studies, it is necessary to combine the refrigerated
transport to carry out detailed market surveys and statistical data on specific sub-cost research to discuss the accounting category
from the existing unit to extract the cost of items in the refrigerated transport means; to improve the existing approaches step by step,
combined with a number of ways to solve, and obtained by comparing the actual costs and overall balance will also be an important
aspect of the study.
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