A Study On The Marine Empty Containers Reposition Based On Two-Stage Model

In this world,containers play an irreplaceable role in global shipping industry by their efficiency,convenience,security.And the development of shipping industry has also brought about a series of problems;the most outstanding one is the reposition of empty containers.How to cut down cost during the process of containers allocation has challenged the shipping industry and academic field.This problem,however,is very complicated and uncertain.And so far most studies have not considered the situation that demand of customers can not be delayed.The thesis took this factor into consideration,and used two-stage model to deal with uncertainty.This thesis,firstly,introduces the theoretic and practical background in this field of research,and demonstrated the purpose of this research,then introduces the problem of empty containers reposition,get some influence factors in the process of reposition.Secondly,this thesis discusses two situations,the hard-demand where demand of customers can not be delayed,the soft-demand where demand of customers can be delayed.Because the demand and supply of empty containers exist some uncertain factors,the thesis adopt two-stage model to reach the deal with the uncertainty.At first stage,before the reposition of containers,shipping company can make decisions according to some determinative information.At second stage,the stage of reposition,shipping company can use the reserve of first stage and empty containers which borrowed from other companies to meet the stochastic demand. Eventually,this thesis uses the operating data to solve the model,and adjust the parameter in model to verify the effectivity.It uses systematic optimizing approach to analyze this problem and its conclusion can give shipping companies a reference.