Regional production-consumption imbalances and deficient multimodal connectivity in grain circulation systems have rendered traditional segmented transport inefficient, loss-intensive, and costly, constraining overall supply chain performance. In China, the persistent north-to-south and west-to-east grain transfer patterns, driven by regional production–consumption imbalances, have imposed significant challenges on the grain circulation system, making multimodal transport optimization a critical priority for national food security. Multimodal transport, a critical logistics optimization strategy, integrates diverse transport modes and hub nodes to enable end-to-end coordination, thereby enhancing circulation efficiency and food security. This study systematically reviews the transport configurations and modal characteristics of grain multimodal transport, and employs bibliometric analysis with the VOSviewer tool to map publication trends and keyword co-occurrence networks. Subsequently, recent advances in transshipment hub location selection and route optimization in multimodal transport systems are examined. Finally, existing technical bottlenecks are summarized, and future research directions are outlined from the perspectives of intelligent logistics, green and low-carbon development, coordinated operations, and supply chain resilience.
Zhang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.