Combined cargo allocation and multi-ship routing and scheduling problem: application in the fertilizer industry

Pietro Tiaraju Giavarina dos Santos () and Denis Borenstein ()
Additional contact information
Pietro Tiaraju Giavarina dos Santos: Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
Denis Borenstein: Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul

TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, 2025, vol. 33, issue 1, No 2, 29-55

Abstract: Abstract This paper explores the complex logistics of ship routing and scheduling for fertilizer companies in Brazil, considering the challenges posed by a dynamic international trade landscape affected by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts. It expands previous research by incorporating cargo allocation to the heterogeneous fleet in the cargo routing and scheduling problem, which is critical for the contemporary operating scenario. The primary objective is to minimize transportation costs by optimizing ship routes, schedules, and cargo allocation to compartments, while addressing specific operational constraints, such as the capacity of ships’ compartments, delivery delays, change of direction in a ship’s route on the Brazilian coast, segregated storage, and ship stability. Considering the complexity of the generated models for real-life problems, a Lagrangian-based solution method, incorporating a modified relax-and-fix matheuristics and several heuristics to improve the solution process of mixed-integer linear programming solvers, is developed. Experimentation with previous real-life instances reveals that the optimization method obtains implementable operational plans with transportation costs reduced by 47.66%, on average, compared to the amounts paid by companies for sea freight services. A case study demonstrates the applicability of the optimization approach as a decision-support tool for real-life planning.

Keywords: Ship routing and scheduling; Cargo allocation; Bulk carrier; Segregated storage; Lagrangian relaxation; 90B06; 90B10; 90B90; 90C06; 90C11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11750-024-00676-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:topjnl:v:33:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11750-024-00676-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://link.springer.de/orders.htm

DOI: 10.1007/s11750-024-00676-w

Access Statistics for this article

TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research is currently edited by Juan José Salazar González and Gustavo Bergantiños

More articles in TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research from Springer, Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().