Liner shipping service network design with empty container repositioning

Qiang Meng, Shuaian Wang

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

223 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper proposes a liner shipping service network design problem with combined hub-and-spoke and multi-port-calling operations and empty container repositioning. It first introduces a novel concept - segment - defined as a pair of ordered ports served by one shipping line and subsequently develops a mixed-integer linear programming model for the proposed problem. Extensive numerical experiments based on realistic Asia-Europe-Oceania shipping operations show that the proposed model can be efficiently solved by CPLEX for real-case problems. They also demonstrate the potential for large cost-savings over pure hub-and-spoke or pure multi-port-calling network, or network without considering empty container repositioning.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)695-708
Number of pages14
JournalTransportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review
Volume47
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Empty container repositioning
  • Hub-and-spoke
  • Liner shipping network design
  • Multi-port-calling
  • Transshipment

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Business and International Management
  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Transportation

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