China will optimize its transportation structure in the next three years, with goals of significantly raising the proportion of railway and waterway freight, an official document said Tuesday.

In 2020, the railway freight volume will increase by 1.1 billion tonnes from that in 2017, while the waterway freight volume will go up by 500 million tonnes, according to an action plan released by the State Council.

Meanwhile, the highway freight volume in coastal ports will drop by 440 million tonnes from that of 2017.

The program will be mainly implemented in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region along with its surrounding areas, the Yangtze River Delta, and the plain area in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces. These regions are key to China's battle against air pollution.

In addition, the document listed six steps of actions, namely to lift railway capacity, upgrade the water transportation system, regulate highway freight transport, speed up multimodal transport, advance green freight in cities and establish information platforms for multimodal transport.