The Analysis Of Ship Routing And Assignment Problems In Container Feeder Liner

From Nineties of the last century, the world's booming economy has brought ever-increasing international trade, which makes the rapid development of container liner business and has brought vitality to the shipping industry. According to statistics, about 80% of international cargo is transport by sea way. In the excellent economic situation, in order to expand the enterprise scale and increase corporate profits, the shipping companies bestellen new vessels or lease vessels, increase routes and absorb supply, which makes a significant increase in number of ships. In the Second half of 2008,the outbreak of the global economic crisis has resulted in the depression of international trade and the shipping industry downturn. Many shipping companies can not absorb enough goods. Coupled with the shipping industry exit mechanism is relatively slow, this situation may brings shipping companies risk. The ships routing and assignment problem relates to the economic benefits and the overall structure of the fleet, thereby affecting the competitiveness of companies. So,be reasonable with ships routing and assignment for the shipping company's survival and development is particularly important. The major shipping companies are all to face reality involved in the study. The shipping companies have to make a comprehensive and deep research on the organization of ships to maximize its effectiveness.Based on the Vehicle Routing Problem, this paper presents a combined optimization IP model of ship routing and assignment in feeder liner container shipping problem (FLCSP). Existing formulations of ship routing or ship assignment are independent LP or IP, which can not satisfy the optimization of the whole system. While compared to VRP or its variations, feeder liner container shipping problem is quite different, for that FLCSP has to design a periodic service pattern in order to maintain the minimum service frequency and satisfy the container transportation demand in the planning horizon, and need considering simultaneously both the assignment of different types of ships and the determination of routes. A combined...