Stability Analysis and Control Strategy for the Chained Propagation of Delay or Disruption Risk in a Port-Hinterland Service Network

In a port-hinterland service network (PHSN), the occurrence of delays or disruption risks in the ports could impose serious impacts on carriers, nodes in hinterlands, or even the entire port-hinterland service network. To study how such risks are generated, propagated, and effectively controlled in the port-hinterland service network, this paper builds a model for the chained propagation of network risks that is consistent with the characteristics of the port-hinterland service network after analysing the risk factors and the risk-generating path by using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) framework. On the premise of model stability analysis, the paper analyses the elasticity of carriers and ports to the infected proportion of nodes in the hinterlands, infection rate, and recovery rate in order to obtain the optimal control strategy and control coefficient, and the paper finally validates the model through a simulation analysis under a real case. The research shows that external factors causing delay or disruption risk are more important than internal factors, while the occurrence probability of external factors is lower than that of internal factors. There are four equilibrium points in this system. When the equilibrium conditions are met, the infected proportion of carriers and ports gradually approaches zero or narrows to a fixed ratio, and there is only one no-epidemic point. In the equilibrium conditions, when the infected proportion of inland ports is greater than a certain threshold, the infected proportion of carriers and ports decreases with an increase in the infected proportion of inland ports. Moreover, it is determined that increasing the recovery rate is the most effective and direct control measure. The results of this study provide new insights for the risk control of port-hinterland service network managers and participants.