Research And Application On Matching Method Of Vessels And Cargos In Ocean Shipping Market

With the globalization of commodity markets, industries of logistics and transportation industry are also growing fast. In the international market, cargo transportation mostly depends on maritime transport, particularly on ocean shipping. However, the asymmetry of shipping information between shippers and carriers, and the lack of effective support in optimized decision both lead to high rate of ship-load and not timely transportation of cargos. Therefore, there needs to be industry-specific matching method for vessels and cargos in order to allow the parties in ocean transportation industry choosing the most suitable matching for vessels and cargos. As a result, parties in ocean transportation industry can reduce the empty load and waiting time of ships.On the foundation of previous research, the paper focuses on the research of matching method of vessels and cargos to meet the specific needs of ocean shipping. Firstly, based on the multi-attribute matching idea, we put forward effective methods for property description and for calculation of loss and revenue during matching. Secondly, we classify the practical common business scenarios as 3 kinds, which include choosing vessels for certain cargo, choosing cargos for certain vessels and bipartite matching of vessels and cargos. Then, for each kind of business, we create the corresponding multi-attribute constraint model and define reasonable heuristic rules to split a variety of constraints to different stages and limit the spatial scale. Finally, we take the practical application of matching method of vessels and cargos in Uniwell (H.K.) Company in order to verify the effectiveness of the matching method. This paper provides solutions on matching method of vessels and cargoes for Ocean Shipping companies like Uniwell (H.K.) and advances the ability of voyage estimation in Ocean shipping. Generally, the solutions have higher theoretic meanings and practice values.