Optimal shipping schedule for a near-sea liner service route with time windows

Abstract

This paper proposes a shipping schedule design problem arising in near-sea liner shipping that aims to determine containership deployment plan, the arrival time at each port of call, and sailing speed for a given liner service route with hard time windows. The problem is transformed into a mixed integer nonlinear nonconvex optimization model, and further transformed into a mixed integer linear optimization model, which can be effectively solved by commercial solvers. The case studies based on a real-life service route show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed solution method. Results also demonstrate that the port time windows affect the total cost of a ship route, the optimal number of ships to deploy, and the optimal schedule.