2025/10/04 by farhad sheidaei, sheidaei, farhad, Samira Bolouri +3
Engineering · Environmental Science · #Urban and Freight Transport Logistics #Railway Systems and Energy Efficiency #Wildlife-Road Interactions and Conservation
paper · doi:10.71593/jrors.2025.1220038
The country’s railway network has undergone significant development over the years and continues to expand nationwide to facilitate efficient passenger and freight transport. Considering that the majority of railway revenue is generated from freight transport, this study aims to evaluate the expansion of the railway network for mine-related freight, identify critical areas for future network development to achieve optimal national coverage, and ultimately determine the priority of line development based on two criteria: mineral significance and distance from mines. Accessibility of the railway network to mines was assessed within a GIS environment. For this purpose, the entire territory of Iran was divided into tessellations (hexagonal cells) of 2,000 km² each. The frequency and density of mines in each unit area were then determined. The results indicate that 390 cells contain at least one mine; in other words, 780,000 km² of the total 1,648,000 km² area of Iran host valuable mineral resources. Moreover, 49 cells, equivalent to 98,000 km², contain more than six mines. Among these, the centroids of 11 cells are located more than 50 km from railway stations, and for 9 cells, this distance exceeds 100 km. Furthermore, the prioritization of future line development, based on the two criteria of distance and mineral significance and using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with equal weighting for both criteria, revealed that Gerdab, Saqeh, and Ezterari 16 are ranked as the top three priorities.