Combined Research On Liner Shipping Network Design And Empty Container Repositioning

With cargo containerized rapidly development, empty container reposition has become one of the difficult problems in liner shipping industry. In order to save transportation cost, how to effectively reduce the cost of empty container reposition has been a focus of liner shipping industry. To minimize the objective of transportation cost, the paper research the liner shipping network design and empty container reposition, which is a exploration further on existed research results. The main contents are as follows:(1) By analyzing the common characteristics of graph theory and liner shipping network, we find that some theories and methods in graph theory can be used effectively in liner shipping network design, which can be as a foundation to research further.(2) We introduce in detail the knowledge about liner shipping network design and empty container reposition.In terms of liner shipping network design, firstly, we introduce briefly route development, type, structure and the type of boat. then elaborate the contents about route optimization and route feasibility analysis and evaluation. For container transportation, we mainly research its dispatching management, distribution and using, reposition mode, stockpiling and management. finally, introduce empty container reposition management and reposition cost.(3) To minimize the transportation cost, the paper proposed two methods to quantitative analyze the liner shipping network design and empty container reposition, namely, mutual substitution between containers and the using of collapsible containers. The introductions about the two methods are as follows:(i) Building a mixed integer programming model based on mutual substitution between containers to research liner shipping network design and empty container reposition, and the model can be effectively solved by CPLEX. Finally, the paper makes the Asia-Europe-Oceania route network as a example to analyze the validity of the model. As a result, we find that by means of the method of mutual substitution between containers on empty container reposition, which can exactly reduce the transportation cost.(ii) Establishing a mixed integer programming model based on empty container collapsible to research the problem. Of course, the model also can be effectively solved by CPLEX. In this part, the paper mainly considerate put collapsible empty containers into transportation. In order to explore the validity of the model, the paper use the same network, namely, Asia-Europe-Oceania route network, as a background. By analyzing the results of the programs, we find that the using of collapsible empty container can effectively minimize the container transportation costs.