Liner Ships Routing Optimization Research Considering Ship Speed

With the rapid development of container liner industry, liner shipping receives more and more attention. That whether the ship is allocated success or not influence a company of its current operations and future business development. In the nineties, when the goods transport are abundance, most of the company with the ship allocation’s purpose is to maximize profits; as the liner market capacity on the rise, the financial crisis occurred, more and more liner company gain profits less and less, loss phenomenon can be seen here and there. The ship is equipped at this time just to meet the capacity of the conditions in the pursuit of cost minimization. For its convenience of service, reliability and punctuality, liner becomes more and more popular. The increase of the level of cargo containers is an inevitable phenomenon. Although, in the short time, the international economic situation may affect the liner shipping industry, bringing it to its lowest point. However, from the point of development, the liner shipping market will continue to grow, and tend to balance capacity and traffic. Therefore, the shipping lines should proceed from long-term development, with existing ships, neither for existing ships idle, nor the company’s losing; more important, is to attract more cargo, and occupy more market share, to prepare for the company’s long-term development.This article bases on above concept, referring to the existing model, then come up with the model. The model takes the ship speed into consideration, as the containership can sail at a certain speed range, which provide the possibility for the liner company to adjust the speed of the deploying container fleet. On one hand, when shipping faces the downturn, containership company can slow down the speed, so as to deploy as many ships as possible. On the other hand, when it sees the peak period, it is suggested to improve the fleet speed, thus offer a more careful service for the container shippers. Then a tabu search is given to solve the model, which witness the practical value of the model.