Optimal investment priority in container port development

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop realistic and relevant investment planning models for inland container transportation systems. The models may be utilized to identify the most effective investment plan for inland transportation infrastructure development and to evaluate the inland container transportation system. The procedure enables determination of the optimal locations, sizes and time of container port developments as well as the optimal container cargo flows through transportation networks. A heuristic algorithm was developed for the purpose of evaluating alternative investment plans. Dynamic and linear programming methods are applied to each of the two planning problems: the former for the optimum container port capacity development problem and the latter for the optimal allocation of inland container traffic movements. The model has been applied to concrete inland container transportation system problems in Korea.