After 12 days being shipped by river, 16 containers arrived at Wanzhou's Jiangnan Tuokou port in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality on Dec 22 – with arrangements made to transfer them to Chengdu in Sichuan province via train without further applications and checks.

It is the first time that combined railway-water transport with a single waybill had been used in China, with major savings to application procedures, time and costs.

Shanghai Minsheng Shipping Co, shipper of the 16 containers, said that due to the different shipping standards of both freight mediums, this type of combined transport used to require reauthorization, statements on the containers and photos of the cargo.

With the single waybill transport, the water and railway transport are authorized by the same shipper, which simplifies the transport procedures and reduces the financial pressures on the shippers.

The transport also applies big data technology to generate digital waybills and realize real-time tracking of the cargo.

According to Shanghai Minsheng Shipping Co, the single waybill transport will contribute to the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Chengdu-Chongqing regional economic circle.

In the future, the company will cooperate with China Railway Chengdu Group Co to further logistics cooperation in the Chengdu-Chongqing regional economic circle -- relying on the Yangtze River waterway, the China Railway Express and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor.