Liner shipping fleet deployment considering decision makers’ psychological behavior

Abstract

Decision makers in liner shipping (i.e., liner shipping planners) are risk-averse in that they aim to minimize the adverse effect under the least desirable scenario. To take this behavior into account, we propose a minimax regret model for fleet deployment with uncertain container shipment demand. The minimax regret model reflects how in reality network planners are evaluated. A dynamic scenario inclusion method is proposed to solve the model to optimality using a limited number of demand scenarios. A case study based on a real liner shipping network is carried out to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model.