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Allocation Of Empty Containers Optimization Study

Posted on:2006-03-04Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:B WangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1119360182956112Subject:Transportation planning and management
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The container is an advanced and normative way of transportation. With more imblance of international trade in these years;, the conflict between providing and demanding is becoming more and more noticeable. In some international sea routes the percentage of empty containers even is higher than 25%. It is surveyed that the total cost of empty container reposition in the world has exceeded 30 billion dollars. Since the cost of empty containers reposition is so large, the shipping companies have to lay emphasis on how to reasonablely reposition empty containers in order to decrease the cost of reposition. Then, the management of empty container reposition becomes one of the most important problems that urge to be solved.This thesis, analyzing the system of empty container reposition and investigating several reposition optimization modals, studies the empty container reposition of land-carriage, sea-bound and intermodel, and searches for some strategies and quantitative means that are propitious to empty container reposition. The purpose is to provide helps for the decisions of shipping companies in empty container reposition. The following is the main work of the paper.Firstly, the thesis builds land-carriage empty cortainer reposition models based on fuzzy linear programming. The aim is to minimize the cost of the reposition of empty containers. The model takes into account the capacity of the empty container supply of the shipping company, the requirement of the customers and the limit to the transport of empty containers. The models are divided into two classes: the requirement of empty containers are fuzzy and the costs of reposition of empty containers are fuzzy.Secondly, the thesis constructs the optimization models of sea-bound empty container reposition. The certain model considers the certainty of the requirement of empty containers, and the uncertain models consider the uncertainty of the requirement of empty containers. All the models takes into account the empty container supply capacity of shipping company, the requirement of customers and the limit to the transport. Apart from the above conditions, the uncertain model considers the limit to the storage of empty containers.Thirdly, the land-carriage empty container reposition models are compared with the sea-bound empty container reposition models and some methods that are helpful to reduce the cost of empty container reposition are summarized.Finally, the thesis builds the modals of the intermodal reposition of empty containers. The modals weight the advantages and the disadvantages of all kinds of transports. It takes into account the reposition plan of empty containers from time and cost. The aim is to minimize the cost of reposition and the restrictions are the limit to the empty container supply capacity a shipping company, the need of customers and the load capacity of transport.The following are originated in the thesis:(i) The thesis builds fuzzy models of land-carriage empty container reposition. The aim is to minimize the cost of the reposition of empty containers. The model takes into account the capacity of the empty container supply of the shipping company, the requirement of the customers and the limit to the transport of empty containers. The models are divided into two classes: the requirements of empty containers are fuzzy and the costs of reposition of empty containers are fuzzy.(ii) The thesis builds dynamic models of sea-bound empty container reposition model. The aim is to minimize the cost of the reposition of empty containers. The cost includes load/unload cost and the transport cost. The model takes into account the capacity of the empty container supply of the shipping company, the requirement of the seaport and the limit to the transport of empty containers.(iii) The thesis builds dynamic stochastic and fuzzy models of sea-carriage empty container reposition. We consider the requirements of the empty container are stochastic and fuzzy because it is affected by many stochastic and fuzzy factors. The aim is to minimize the cost of the reposition of empty containers. The cost includes load/unload cost and the transport cost. The model takes into account the capacity of the empty container supply of the shipping company, the requirement of the seaport and the limit to the transport of empty containers. (iv) The thesis builds dynamic models of intermodal land-carriage empty container reposition. The aim is to minimize the cost of the reposition ofempty containers. The model takes into account the capacity of the empty container supply of the shipping company, ;he requirement of the customers and the limit to all kinds of transport of empty containers, (v) The thesis builds dynamic stochastic and fuzzy models of intermodal land-carriage empty container reposition. We consider the requirements of the empty container are stochastic and fuzzy because it is affected by many stochastic and fuzzy factors. The aim is to minimize the cost of the reposition of empty containers. The model takes into account the capacity of the empty container supply of the shipping company, the requirement of the customers and the limit to all kinds of transport of empty containers.The land-carriage, sea-bound and intermodal reoosition modals, which are linear, stochastic and fuzzy programming, are established. In the stochastic modals, the requirement of empty containers is stochastic. In the fuzzy modals, the requirement of empty containers and the cost of reposition are fuzzy. The modals of the thesis enrich and improve the theoretical results of the reposition of empty container.This thesis, applying the concept of system, focus on the optimization technology to study the empty container reposition. It provides some valuable suggestions for the shipping companies.
Keywords/Search Tags:land-carriage empty container reposition, sea-bound empty container reposition, chance-constrained programming, integer programming, fuzzy linear programming
PDF Full Text Request
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