Article ID: | iaor20081912 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 43 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 39 |
End Page Number: | 59 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2007 |
Journal: | Transportation Research. Part E, Logistics and Transportation Review |
Authors: | Nishimura Etsuko, Imai Akio, Papadimitriou Stratos, Shintani Koichi |
Keywords: | heuristics: genetic algorithms |
This paper addresses the design of container liner shipping service networks by explicitly taking into account empty container repositioning. Two key and interrelated issues, those of deploying ships and containers are usually treated separately by most existing studies on shipping network design. In this paper, both issues are considered simultaneously. The problem is formulated as a two-stage problem. A genetic algorithm-based heuristic is developed for the problem. Through a number of numerical experiments that were conducted it was shown that the problem with the consideration of empty container repositioning provides a more insightful solution than the one without.