Reversing port rotation directions in a container liner shipping network

Abstract

Reversing port rotation directions of ship routes is a practical alteration of container liner shipping networks. The port rotation directions of ship routes not only affect the transit time of containers, as has been recognized by the literature, but also the shipping capacity and transshipment cost. This paper aims to obtain the optimal port rotation directions that minimize the generalized network-wide cost including transshipment cost, slotpurchasing cost and inventory cost. A mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed for the optimal port rotation direction optimization problem and it nests a minimum cost multi-commodity network flow model. The proposed model is applied to a liner shipping network operated by a global liner shipping company. Results demonstrate that real-case instances could be efficiently solved and significant cost reductions are gained by optimization of port rotation directions. AbstractReversing port rotation directions of ship routes is a practical alteration of container liner shipping networks. The port rotation directions of ship routes not only affect the transit time of containers, as has been recognized by the literature, but also the shipping capacity and transshipment cost. This paper aims to obtain the optimal port rotation directions that minimize the generalized network-wide cost including transshipment cost, slot-purchasing cost and inventory cost. A mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed for the optimal port rotation direction optimization problem and it nests a minimum cost multicommodity network flow model. The proposed model is applied to a liner shipping network operated by a global liner shipping company. Results demonstrate that real-case instances could be efficiently solved and significant cost reductions are gained by optimization of port rotation directions.

A Trial-and-Error Method with Autonomous Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Traffic Counts for Cordon-Based Congestion Pricing

“…This work by Li has been well recognized in the literature, and only recently Wang and Yang [23] pointed out that under some extreme conditions (when the demand function is too flat) this solution method could not converge, and a bisection-based trial-and-error method was then developed to remedy this problem. Such a concept of trial-and-error is also of considerable importance for other sorts of transportation networks [24,25].…”

Optimal sequence of container ships in a string

“…For instance, the leg after the last port of call in Asia in the hithaul leg for trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe services, as the demand from Asia to the US/Europe is higher than that from the US/Europe to Asia. To simplify the exposition, we consider a liner service with only one export port (e.g., Shanghai) and one import port (e.g., Los Angeles), providing a weekly frequency, as most shipping services are weekly (Bell, Liu, Angeloudis, Fonzone, & Hosseinloo, 2011;Bell, Liu, Rioult, & Angeloudis, 2013;Wang, 2014;Wang & Meng, 2013).…”

Cooperative liner shipping network design by means of a combinatorial auction

“…For example, designing an optimal single service route in a liner network is addressed by Tran (2011) and Gelareh et al (2013). In Wang and Meng (2013) the effects of reversing the port call sequence on transshipment, inventory holding, and slot purchasing costs are studied. Shintani et al (2007) and Meng and Wang (2011) take into account the need for repositioning empty containers during network design.…”