Abstract
This policy brief examines Iran’s emerging overland supply architecture under sustained maritime constraint. It argues that Iran’s logistics adaptation is moving beyond discrete alternative corridors toward a functionally differentiated rail–road system linking Chinese gateways, Central Asian transit networks, Iranian border crossings, and domestic distribution. Rail and trucking are treated as complementary rather than interchangeable modes: rail supports scheduled, containerized, heavier-volume flows, while trucking adds flexibility for urgent, high-value, smaller-lot, and final-distribution cargo. The brief analyzes China–Central Asia rail data, Horgos and Alashankou gateway patterns, China–Iran block-train services, TIR and trucking evidence, APRIN Dry Port specifications, and reported Iranian border, fuel, and driver constraints. It concludes that the central issue is capacity conversion: overland resilience depends on how much nominal gateway and corridor access becomes reliable delivered supply inside Iran, not on route count alone.