Comparative Assessment of Eurasian Freight Transport Corridors: A Carbon–Cost–Time Analysis of Northern, Middle, and Southern Routes

Eurasian freight transportation is increasingly shaped by the need to balance transit efficiency, economic performance, and environmental impacts. This study presents a comparative carbon–cost–time assessment of alternative freight corridors between Shanghai and Rotterdam. Three route configurations are evaluated: the rail-based Northern Corridor, the multimodal Middle Corridor, the southern maritime route via the Suez Canal, and an alternative maritime route via the Cape of Good Hope. A common functional unit of 100 TEU is adopted to enable consistent cross-modal comparison. The results reveal a distinct trade-off between transit time and capacity-normalized environmental–economic performance. The Northern Corridor provides the shortest transit time (237 h), whereas the Suez route achieves the lowest CO2 emissions (117,457 kg CO2/100 TEU) and fuel-related cost (USD 24,160/100 TEU). Rerouting via the Cape increases distance, transit time, emissions, and fuel-related cost by approximately 34.6% relative to the Suez route. Even when an assumed USD 700,000 Suez Canal transit fee is included, the Cape route remains approximately 17.0% more expensive. These findings provide a quantitative basis for evaluating carbon–cost–time trade-offs in Eurasian freight corridor selection.