Route Planning Of Feeder Lines For Regional Transportation Network

The advantage of the container hub-and-spoke marine transport network is to reduce the cost of each container and maximize the economies of scale, which cause the separation of maritime trunk network and feeder network objectively. In order to achieve the maximum profit and the minimum total cost of container transportation, the liner companies will face a lot of long-term strategic decision-making issues including a reasonable choice of hub ports, an optimized container transport route, and a stable container marine transport network. Due to the phenomenon of excessive competition in regional transport market recently, the liner companies are facing daunting challenges. Therefore, how to establish a stable container marine transport network and minimize the trade risk is the most important issue the liner company should solve currently.The construction of feeder shipping network is a complex system engineering. It involves hub port positioning, route design, ship scheduling and many other decisions affected by multiple factors, variables, and constraints. Meanwhile, the container transport market is always subjected to various uncertain factors, such as demand and cost uncertainties changes of world’s politics, economy and trade environment, natural disasters, new ports constructions, etc. These factors often bring great effects to the liner companies in organizing production. In order to reduce the influence of the risks brought by these uncertainties, it is necessary to use a reasonable optimization method for container marine transport network, to increase the system robustness.In this paper we investigate feeder shipping network optimization system based on cybernetics and systems engineering, planning and scheduling to be the main line, cost control as the core, control integrated with feedback. We seek to determine one reasonable local hub port and optimal routes for a containership fleet performing pick-ups and deliveries, between the hub and several spoke ports in a same region. The relationship between hub port and traffic in feeder lines is analyzed, a new network planning method that integrated hub port location and route designing is proposed. A capacitated vehicle routing problem with pick-ups, deliveries and time deadlines is formulated and solved using an improved genetic algorithm for positioning hub port and establishing routes for a containership fleet. And then this paper investigates the strategic robust feeder marine network design problem of keeping stable performance when design parameters fluctuate. Based on the definition of robust solution, a robust optimization model is built for a capacitated vehicle routing problem with pick-ups, deliveries and time deadlines and solved using an improved genetic algorithm for establishing routes for a containership fleet. Results on the performance of the algorithm and the feasibility of the approach show that a relatively small fleet of containerships could provide efficient services within deadlines. Meanwhile, it is indicated that the robust optimization model can reduce investment risks effectively when it is applied to feeder marine network design.