Impact analysis of different container arrival patterns on ship scheduling in liner shipping

Abstract

ABSTRACT Different transportation modes interrelate in intermodal transportation. Previous researches on intermodal transportation mainly investigate policy, network design, cargo routing or drayage operations. In order to explore the coordination between two connected transportation modes, this paper considers the connection between inland transportation and maritime container transportation. By making use of different container arrival patterns resulted from inland transportation, this paper focuses on liner ship scheduling with sailing speed optimization, as well as considering the container storage cost at each port. The studied problem is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model, which is efficiently solved by using an outer-approximation method. Numerical results show that the optimal ship schedule varies with different container arrival patterns, and this influence is also related to the container storage cost and the bunker price.