Eliminate the Queuing Time in the New Suez Canal: Predicting Adjustment on Ships’ Arrival Time under Optimal Non-Queuing Toll Scheme

Abstract

In 2016, the construction of the New Suez Canal was completed, enabling most large-size vessels to pass through and causing more ships to queue into the canal. As the queueing problem at the entrance of the canal was anticipated to be serious, an optimal non-queueing toll scheme was previously established to eliminate the queueing phenomenon at the anchorage of the canal. However, no information about each ship’s arrival time adjustment under the optimal non-queueing toll scheme is available from the previous literature. To solve this problem, we derive a series of mathematical formulae for each ship’s arrival time, length of queuing time and entry time before, and after, implementing the optimal non-queueing toll scheme. The arrival time adjustments, which enable ships to enter the canal without queueing, could then be obtained. These results enable the Suez Canal authorities to draw up the ship’s arrival timetable under the optimal non-queueing toll scheme, so that the captain could follow to enter the canal. The above information that we provide would be conducive to the management decision for the canal authorities to implement such a toll scheme. Once a tolled ship could enter the canal at the scheduled time without queueing, the ship owner could accurately control the sailing schedule, and the use of the ship could be more efficient.