Article ID: | iaor20164351 |
Volume: | 49 |
Issue: | 4 |
Start Page Number: | 886 |
End Page Number: | 899 |
Publication Date: | Nov 2015 |
Journal: | Transportation Science |
Authors: | Gao Ziyou, Sun Zhuo, Yang Dong, Zheng Jianfeng |
Keywords: | supply & supply chains, design, transportation: water, heuristics, combinatorial optimization, demand |
In liner shipping, liner carriers operate and cooperate as an alliance by sharing (or exchanging) ship capacities in order to compete with other liner carriers. Because of the long‐term or short‐term shipment contracts signed by shippers, the container demands transported by liner carriers can be classified as fixed demands or variable demands, respectively. We present an integrated mixed‐integer linear programming model to solve the relevant problems on liner alliances including shipping network design with ship fleet deployment, allocation of the variable demands, capacities exchanged among liner carriers, and container routing. In our model, liner carriers are guided to pursue an optimal collaborative solution. As an added incentive, the capacity exchange costs are paid to liner carriers for sharing capacities and following the optimal collaborative solution. The computation of capacity exchange costs is obtained by using the inverse optimization technique. Finally, the numerical experiments for Asia‐Europe‐Oceania shipping services are discussed.