Flow balancing-based empty container repositioning in typical shipping service routes

Dong-ping Song and Jing-xin Dong
Additional contact information
Dong-ping Song: International Shipping & Logistics Group, Business School, University of Plymouth, Cookworthy Building, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
Jing-xin Dong: International Shipping & Logistics Group, Business School, University of Plymouth, Cookworthy Building, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK

Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2011, vol. 13, issue 1, 77 pages

Abstract: This article formulates the empty container repositioning problem for general shipping service routes based on container flow balancing. Two types of flow balancing mechanisms are analysed. The first is based on point-to-point balancing, which leads to a point-to-point repositioning policy. The second is based on coordinated balancing in the whole service, which leads to a coordinated repositioning policy. A simple heuristic algorithm is presented to solve the coordinated balancing problem which aims to minimize total empty container repositioning costs. The above two repositioning policies are then applied to a range of shipping services, representing typical route structures in existing shipping networks. The relative performances of these two policies and their sensitivity to route structure and trade demand are examined in both deterministic and stochastic situations. Managerial insights are subsequently derived.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v13/n1/pdf/mel201018a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/journal/v13/n1/full/mel201018a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:pal:marecl:v:13:y:2011:i:1:p:61-77

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41278/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Maritime Economics & Logistics is currently edited by Hercules E. Haralambides

More articles in Maritime Economics & Logistics from Palgrave Macmillan, International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().