BEIJING — Multimodal transportation that involves two or more means among road, railway and waterway has reduced logistics costs by about 11.2 billion yuan (about $1.6 billion) in the first nine months of this year, an official said on Dec 5.

The 70 multimodal transportation projects, jointly launched by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) and the National Development and Reform Commission, handled 3.82 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) of containers in the first three quarters, according to the MOT.

The adoption of multimodal transportation as an efficient means of transportation, mainly used on containers, was promoted in a government action plan on pushing transportation structural upgrade released in September 2018.

The three-year action plan, also calling for replacing road transportation of bulk cargoes with railways and waterways to curb pollution, has resulted in 30 million fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted and 15,000 fewer tonnes of particulate matter generated since last year, according to Minister of Transport Li Xiaopeng.

The government will continue to improve transportation structure with advancing multimodal transportation as a key task, said Li.