Designing Container Shipping Routes for Heterogeneous Fleet for Coastal Services ()
ABSTRACT
Shipping companies operating liner services keep facing a high level of
competition because of the increasing demand for these operators to provide
fast, efficient, effective and reliable service. It is challenging for these
liner operators to offer such services and still be competitive without
strategic planning. It, therefore, makes planning and scheduling of shipping
routes essential for the smooth operation of liner ships, especially shipping
lines operating heterogeneously mixed size fleets. This paper aims to solve a
heterogeneously mixed size fleet problem by using an operation research method
with the implementation of linear programming to develop optimal shipping
routes for a fleet of five vessels serving six coastal ports to get optimal
results. An optimal solution to the problem is found with only two routes
selected as the optimal shipping routes out
of four routes that are considered. The results also showed that a
vessel can be assigned to multiple shipping routes.
Share and Cite:
Kingsley, C. (2019) Designing Container Shipping Routes for Heterogeneous Fleet for Coastal Services.
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
9, 799-817. doi:
10.4236/ojapps.2019.911065.