Container Transportation System Design Based On Bounded Rational Choice Behaviors And Demand Fluctuation

Container transport system,known as liner shipping system,is the most important system that transport containers all over the world.In order to cope with the intense competition and increase revenue,the liner company has to design and optimize its container transport system to meet the market demand.Therefore,container transport system optimization has always been the focus of academic research and the shipping industry.Container transport system mainly consists of three parts:the shipping network design problem,the fleet size design problem and the slots distribution problem.These problems interact with each other and restrict each other,so that they need to be solved under one model frame.Besides,there are other two external factors that can affect the optimization of container transport system.One factor is demand fluctuation,another is bounded rational choice of shippers.The liner company needs to adjust shipping network design and fleet deployment according to demand fluctuation.Meanwhile,slots distribution plans need to be optimized based on bounded rational choices of shippers.In this paper,taking into account bounded rational choices of shippers and seasonal fluctuation in transport demand,the three sub-problems of the optimization of container transport system are redefined as the shipping network set design problem,the fleet size design problem considering network modification and slots distribution problem with demand satisfaction rate.A bi-level optimization model is proposed based on the three sub-problems.The upper model is used to identify the best shipping network set and fleet deployment,while the lower model is used to optimize the slots distribution plans.To solve the optimization model,a heuristic algorithm combines Genetic Algorithm and Simplex Method is created.GA is used to search the best network set scheme,and Simplex Method is designed for slots distribution problem.At last,a case study is implemented based on the Far East-Europe shipping route to prove the effectiveness and accuracy of the model and algorithm.The results show that the model proposed in this paper can optimize the container transport system considering bounded rational choices of shippers and seasonal fluctuation in transport demand.The optimized shipping network set can provide stable shipping service while increasing the revenue of the liner company.Moreover,the results also reveal new explanations for the increasing size of container ships.