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Liner shipping network design with sensitive demand

Cheaitou, Ali, Hamdan, Sadeque, Larbi, Rim (2021) Liner shipping network design with sensitive demand. Maritime Business Review, 6 (3). pp. 293-313. ISSN 2397-3757. (doi:10.1108/MABR-10-2019-0045) (KAR id:90715)

Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to examine containership routing and speed optimization for maritime liner services. It focuses on a realistic case in which the transport demand, and consequently the collected revenue from the visited ports depend on the sailing speed. Design/methodology/approach: The authors present an integer non-linear programming model for the containership routing and fleet sizing problem, in which the sailing speed of every leg, the ports to be included in the service and their sequence are optimized based on the net line's profit. The authors present a heuristic approach that is based on speed discretization and a genetic algorithm to solve the problem for large size instances. They present an application on a line provided by COSCO in 2017 between Asia and Europe. Findings: The numerical results show that the proposed heuristic approach provides good quality solutions after a reasonable computation time. In addition, the demand sensitivity has a great impact on the selected route and therefore the profit function. Moreover, the more the demand is sensitive to the sailing speed, the higher the sailing speed value. Research limitations/implications: The vessel carrying capacity is not considered in an explicit way. Originality/value: This paper focuses on an important aspect in liner shipping, i.e. demand sensitivity to sailing speed. It brings a novel approach that is important in a context in which sailing speed strategies and market volatility are to be considered together in network design. This perspective has not been addressed previously. © 2020, Pacific Star Group Education Foundation.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1108/MABR-10-2019-0045
Additional information: This is the accepted version of a paper accepted for publication by the journal indicated in the bibliographic reference and is distributed here under the terms of the licence indicated.
Uncontrolled keywords: container ship routing; Arc dependent sailing speed; optimization; sensitive demand; genetic algorithm; Europe-Asia Trade
Subjects: H Social Sciences
Divisions: Divisions > Kent Business School - Division > Department of Analytics, Operations and Systems
Depositing User: Sadeque Hamdan
Date Deposited: 09 Nov 2021 15:24 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2022 06:18 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/90715 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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