Evolution of the China Railway Express Consolidation Network and Optimization of Consolidation Routes

Table 1

Summary and comparison of the research literature.

Main characteristics of previous studies	Representative studies	Research perspectives
Evaluation of a node’s importance using an indicator system	[2, 5, 7, 28, 29]	The indicator evaluation mostly analyzed the network as sublevels. It should instead consider the network as a functional whole
Evaluation of a fully connected CRE network	[1, 4, 6]	In practice, the CRE network is not fully connected, and does not represent a scale-free network
Evaluation of the CRE network with a focus on static analysis, primarily considering a cross-sectional view of the network structure	[1, 6, 8]	In practice, the CRE network is dynamic. The emerging network structure will lead to lock-in and path dependence, and will therefore significantly affect the network’s future evolution