Tactical planning models for managing container flow and ship deployment

This paper addresses two practical problems from a liner shipping company, i.e. the container flow management problem and the ship deployment problem, at the tactical planning level. A sequential model and a joint optimisation model are formulated to solve the problems. Our results show that the company should implement the joint optimisation model at the tactical planning level to improve the shipping capacity utilisation rather than the sequential model used in the current practice. Repositioning empty containers also need to be considered jointly with the nonempty container flow at the tactical planning level. Some important managerial insights into the operational and business processes are gained.