Solving real-world sized container pre-marshalling problems with an iterative deepening branch-and-bound algorithm

Shunji Tanaka and Kevin Tierney ()

European Journal of Operational Research, 2018, vol. 264, issue 1, 165-180

Abstract: Container terminals around the world regularly re-sort the containers they store according to their retrieval times in a process called pre-marshalling, thus ensuring containers are efficiently transferred through the terminal. State-of-the-art algorithms struggle to find optimal solutions for real-world sized pre-marshalling problems. To this end, we introduce an improved exact algorithm using an iterative deepening branch and bound search, including a novel lower bound computation, a new branching heuristic, new dominance rule and a new greedy partial solution completion heuristic. Our approach finds optimal solutions for 161 more instances than the state-of-the-art algorithm on two well known, difficult pre-marshalling datasets, and solves all instances in three other datasets in just several seconds. Furthermore, we find optimal solutions for a majority of real-world sized instances, and feasible solutions with very low relaxation gaps on those instances where no optimal could be found.

Keywords: OR in maritime industry; Container pre-marshalling; Terminal operations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:264:y:2018:i:1:p:165-180

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.05.046

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