Abstract
In this paper, we will study a typical problem in inland container shipping, concerning the barge transportation of maritime containers between a dry port and a set of seaport terminals. The barges depart from the dry port and visit a set of sea terminals, where containers need either to be dropped off or picked up. The goal is to achieve economies of scale with barges and avoid trucking as much as possible. The decision thus involves finding the best allocation of containers to barges in order to guarantee on-time delivery and meet capacity restrictions. The problem will be modeled as a variant of the split vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickups and deliveries coupled with time features. The model includes parameters that can be tuned to improve barge utilization and travelling distance. A hybrid local search meta-heuristic algorithm, combined with a branch-and-cut solver, will be developed to solve the model. Numerical experiments have been conducted to test the performance of the algorithm and provide solution analysis for practical insights. Real-world data has been collected from a local barge operator based in the Port of Rotterdam region and will be used as input for the experiments. This will result in an in-depth analysis into current planning practices. The proposed framework complements existing models in the literature and contributes to the development of a comprehensive set of decision support tools, which help in the decision-making process for inland terminals.
Highlights
Inland shipping plays an important role in the transportation of maritime containers in the hinterlands
The reasons for the arrangement are: 1) normally there are limited number of seaport terminals in close geographical proximity, the lengths of the routes between a dry port and seaport terminals are similar; 2) the travelling distance between a dry port to sea ports are generally short, which makes the variable costs relating to mileage only accounts for a small portion of the overall costs compared to the fixed costs of dispatching a truck; 3) trucks, due to their flexibility, may be used to deal with containers that are outside the scope of this research; for example, last mile delivery, empty container repositioning, transport between sea ports, and drayage operations in general
For CPLEX, we report the best integer solution, the best lower bound, and the timing when the best integer solution is found during the set time frame
Summary
Inland shipping plays an important role in the transportation of maritime containers in the hinterlands. Barges depart from an inland terminal serving as a collection point for import and export containers. They visit multiple sea terminals where export containers are unloaded and import containers are loaded The barges end their route at the inland terminal, where the collected import containers are discharged (Fazi, 2019). Fazi (2019) developed a decision-making framework for the stowage of import and export containers on a barge, which involved the same transportation setting as proposed in this paper. Our work extends the model of Fazi et al (2015) by considering both export and import containers, and more realistic time constraints, all while not imposing a master route to barges.
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