"Thousands of light boats" race with a hundred sails.

On July 25th a year ago, a fleet of agile "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" set off from Chongqing, addressing the shipping dilemma of "large ships struggling, small ships scattered" in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Today, this inland shipping brand, which is uniquely identifiable with Chongqing, has launched 20 routes, completed a freight volume of 7.764 million tons, achieved a total cargo value of 11 billion yuan, and reduced logistics costs by over 25%.

From agricultural and sideline products in Yunnan, liquor from Guizhou, lithium batteries from Sichuan, building materials from Hubei, to automobiles and motorcycles from Chongqing, the variety of goods carried by the "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" has become increasingly diverse. With "one park, one specialist," the initiative has not only effectively revitalized the "spring waters" of shipping in the upper Yangtze River but has also become a strong new driver for regional economic development.

From "main arteries" to "capillaries"

Chongqing boasts 1,225 kilometers of high-grade waterways and a port annual throughput capacity of 245 million tons. However, the daily average number of ships navigating the Chongqing section of the Yangtze River is only about 200, less than one-tenth of the Jiangsu section. Facing the contradiction between the navigational limitations of the upper Yangtze River and the underutilization of large ships, the "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" adopted a new approach by implementing a "large when suitable, small when necessary" vessel strategy. They promoted the use of thousand-ton ships and push-tow fleets, leveraging the flexibility of small and medium-sized vessels for trunk and branch connectivity and loading/unloading. This initiative connects over 40 cargo terminals. In the first half of this year, the waterway freight volume of the Jialing River section between Sichuan and Chongqing reached nearly 16 million tons, a year-on-year increase of over 40%, extending water transport services from "main arteries" to "capillaries."

Behind the "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" is a multi-level, cross-regional, and cross-departmental collaborative effort. The central and municipal governments have strengthened top-level design, while the five provinces and cities of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hubei, and Chongqing have jointly promoted integrated management of waterways, ship locks, and information systems. A four-tier linkage mechanism of "municipal decision-making, departmental coordination, district and county execution, and enterprise operation" operates efficiently. Additionally, a "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" development alliance has been established, comprising over 130 upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, achieving full coverage of "one park, one specialist" across 49 key parks.

Relying on a "fixed port, fixed route, fixed schedule, fixed timing, fixed vessel" bus-like liner service and an intelligent shipping platform, the "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" initiative has reduced booking times by 66%. It has also completed a 153-kilometer electronic navigation chart for the Chongqing section of the Jialing River, seamlessly connecting it with the main Yangtze River channel, providing real-time water depth and navigation marker information.

The "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" initiative integrates with the Jinsha River shipping system, the Three Gorges transshipment system, and the middle and lower Yangtze River shipping network. It connects to the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and the China-Europe (Chengdu-Chongqing) freight trains, forming a highly efficient and coordinated multimodal transport model. Through inter-provincial joint scheduling, the navigation times from Guangyuan to Chongqing and from Goupitan to Fuling have been shortened to 7 days and 4 days, respectively. It has also achieved nighttime navigation along the entire Jialing River and bidirectional connectivity of the "sea-rail-river" cross-border corridor.

Accelerating the implementation of intelligent scenarios

As routes continue to densify and specialized transport scenarios expand, the "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" initiative has outlined a series of tasks, including strengthening collaborative linkages, improving collection and distribution systems, optimizing route layouts, and iterating the intelligent platform. The goal is to launch over 20 routes and achieve a freight volume of 10 million tons within the year.

After a year of continuous adjustment since its launch, Chongqing will focus on key cooperation tasks, deepening collaboration with the four provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Hubei in improving shipping infrastructure and jointly building an intelligent shipping system. Efforts will be made to enhance the efficiency of multimodal transport connections, accelerate the improvement of the Jialing, Wu, and Fu Rivers' waterways, and expedite ongoing projects such as the Fuxin Dam, Weituo, and Anju ship locks. This will enable the aggregation of small ships, the consolidation of tributary cargo, and the coordination of trunk and branch lines.

In terms of route layout, Chongqing plans to increase the frequency of lithium battery routes, promote pilot projects for new modes of roll-on/roll-off transshipment across the Three Gorges, and address the challenge of lithium battery transport ships being unable to pass through the Three Gorges Dam. Efforts will also focus on building a cargo distribution center in the Three Gorges Reservoir area to improve the loading rate of ships passing through locks and address the difficulties of ship passage during lock maintenance. Leveraging the "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" transshipment system, the initiative will connect upstream to the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and China-Europe freight trains, while expanding downstream to transshipment rail and road diversion channels, ensuring the transport of key materials during the construction period of the new Three Gorges channel.

Digital and intelligent upgrades are the trend of the future. Next, the "Thousand-Mile Light Boats" intelligent system will accelerate the implementation of scenario-based applications, optimizing the use of AI in scenarios such as pricing and safety warnings. It will also expedite the iterative upgrade of the intelligent shipping platform, building a "one-stop" intelligent logistics service loop to provide a perceptible, trackable, and guaranteed end-to-end experience.

In addition, Chongqing will expand its user ecosystem, ensuring that operations are scheduled on the platform, policies are implemented on the platform, and ecosystem services are realized on the platform. Efforts will also be made to accelerate the interconnection of key node data with the Three Gorges transshipment system and road short-haul platforms, using data integration to support end-to-end logistics visualization and closed-loop management.