Empty container exchange among liner carriers

Jianfeng Zheng, Zhuo Sun and Ziyou Gao

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 2015, vol. 83, issue C, 158-169

Abstract: In an attempt to reduce the empty container repositioning costs, this paper studies an empty container allocation problem considering the coordination among liner carriers. We further measure the perceived values of empty container at different ports. The perceived values of empty container at the surplus (deficit) ports are described by the profits (empty container exchange costs paid) for delivering empty containers. To solve our problems, we propose a two-stage optimization method. In stage I, liner carriers are guided to pursue a centralized optimization solution of empty container allocation for all related liner carriers. In stage II, the inverse optimization technique is used to determine the empty container exchange costs, which are paid to liner carriers for exchanging empty containers and following the centralized optimization solution. The profits at the surplus ports are calculated with respect to the empty container exchange costs at the deficit ports. Finally, numerical experiments on an Asia–Europe–Oceania shipping service network are discussed.

Keywords: Empty container allocation; Value of empty container; Two-stage optimization method; Inverse optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1366554515001726
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transe:v:83:y:2015:i:c:p:158-169

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600244/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600244/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.tre.2015.09.007

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review is currently edited by W. Talley

More articles in Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().