The Optimization Designing Of Feeder Container Ship Transport Routes

The integration of world economic and improvement of container transportation technology, result in pursuing scale benefits for shipping companies and emerging of the larger container ships continuously. However, the large container ships can only be linked with deep main ports, then the cargo which the main line required need to be transited by feeder container ships. So the demand of container feeder transportation for container transport market is more and more, and there forms the hub-and-spoke maritime transportation mode. Clearly, the container feeder transport is the corollary of the development of international container transport. Given that some feeder areas have plenty of feeder ports which with unstable number of resources, there is also no fixed routes for ships in this area. Then it is necessary to use scientific means to design routes, to optimize resources, to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. Therefore, how to devise reasonable container feeder transport routes and raise service efficiency is an urgent problem to solve for maritime enterprises.The paper discusses the designing of feeder transport routes from three different aspects, through a detailed analysis of the overview and current research for feeder container transport. Firstly, aiming at the situation of one type of ships, the constraints of shipping capacity and time deadlines were analyzed. Then a mixed integer programming model which is solved using genetic algorithms to meet the shortest journey time is built. At the same time, an example is necessary to verify the feasibility of the model. Secondly, a depth study of the designing of routes for one type of ships is carried out to settle the optimization problem dynamically when the supply of feeder ports is increased in the process of navigation. The study which is solved by the idea of numerical insertion method supplements the model which is established under initial information and realizes a dynamic optimization to the designed routes. Thirdly, the situation of feeder route designing with different types of ships is discussed to meet the least operating costs and solved using improved genetic algorithm. Then a comparison of influence to the route design results and the objective function values between two types of ships and three types of ships is analyzed.The results show that it can resolve the trouble that there is no fixed route in some regional areas by using the model in paper. The dynamic optimization model provides a strategy to settle the increased supply of feeder ports. The designing results of variety of ship are consistent to the actual planning of maritime enterprises. In sum, the feasibility of the model and the effectiveness of the algorithm can be verified, so this paper can provide decision supports for shipping companies.