Two-Phase Optimization Models for Liner Shipping Network Based on Hub Ports Cooperation: From the Perspective of Supply-Side Reform in China

Abstract

From the perspective of supply-side reform in China, it is hard for COSCO Shipping, a merged company with a strong shipping capacity, to abandon the container shipping market. Meanwhile, the new company could cooperate with new strategic ports along the Maritime Silk Road in liner service. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to optimize the liner shipping network (LSN) from strategic, tactical, and operational levels and help the merged shipping company adjust its operational measures according to market changes. The optimization towards different levels of decision-making process is a new research of highly practical values. Specifically, this paper created two-phase optimization models for LSN based on the selection of hub ports. In Network Assessment (NA) phase, the LSNs of two types of hub ports selected are designed and assessed on strategic and tactical levels, and the primary and secondary routes are identified; in Network Operation (NO) phase, the “path-based flow” formulations are proposed from the operational level, considering operational measures including demand rejection and flow integration. The models in both phases are mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), but are solved by different tools: CPLEX for the NA phase models and the Genetic Algorithm (GA) for the NO phase models due to the computational complexity of the latter problem. Then, a computational experiment is performed on the LSN of COSCO Shipping on the Persian Gulf trade lane. The results have proved the effectiveness of the methodology and inspired important countermeasures for the merged shipping company.

Integrated Planning of Feeder Route Selection, Schedule Design, and Fleet Allocation with Multimodal Transport Path Selection Considered

“…There are currently two ways to describe the feeder route, i.e., the network design problem generated from scratch [7,12,[40][41][42] and the route selection problem based on given schemes [4,25,[43][44][45]. As the number of port calls and feeder routes is limited, we carry out the route comparison based on given schemes.…”

“…Formula (41) requires that the round-trip time of ships on each feeder route not exceed the schedule interval of the trunk liner. Formula (42) requires that the arrival time of each round trip satisfies the arrival-time window at the trunk port. Formula (43) calculates the ship quantity required according to the service frequency and round-trip time and requires the ship quantity required is to be less than the ship quantity allocated.…”

Innovative Waterway-Waterway Transfer Service Models and Experience for Container Logistics in China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone：A Case Study of Taicang Express Line

“…where l(i,j) is a number of edges in the geodesic between nodes i and j. Nodes have a higher closeness centrality are important more than other nodes (Zhao et al, 2014).…”

“…In other words, it can be used to assess the reachability of a port to the other ports in the studied region (Li et al, 2015). It is also a useful measure of a shipping lines' service coverage or "shipping accessibility" of ports in the network (Zhao et al, 2014).…”

“…where a is the constant, yij is one if j is connected to i and zero otherwise, Cj is the centrality of node j (Jackson, 2010). Since yij are the elements of adjacent matrix Y, solving the system of equation (9-a) for all nodes is equivalent to solving for the eigenvector Ce of Ce(i) in the following equation: Because eigenvector centrality indicates the importance of ports in terms of its connectivity with important ports in the network (Lu et al, 2018), it can be used to evaluate the central role of ports (Shanmukhappa et al, 2018) and to measure the "development potential" of a port (Zhao et al, 2014).…”