Quantifying the impact of inland transport times on container fleet sizing in liner shipping services with uncertainties
Quantifying the impact of inland transport times on container fleet sizing in liner shipping services with uncertainties
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DOI：
10.1007/s00291-009-0185-4
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发表时间：
2012
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Jingxin Dong;D. Song
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Jingxin Dong;D. Song
集装箱船队规模是班轮运输业的一个关键问题。虽然集装箱航运是一种多式联运系统，但内陆集装箱运输往往超出航运公司的控制范围。了解内陆运输时间及其变化如何影响集装箱船队规模至关重要。本文首先建立了具有不确定客户需求和随机内陆运输时间的集装箱班轮运输船队规模问题。然后采用基于仿真的优化方法来解决问题。两个典型的航运服务，一个循环的路线在跨太平洋航线和其他更复杂的路线在欧亚航线，作为案例研究。建立了最优集装箱船队规模与内陆运输时间之间的定量关系。内陆时间的不确定性对船队规模的影响也进行了研究。研究结果为航运公司制定战略决策提供了有用的见解。
Container fleet sizing is a key issue in liner shipping industry. Although container shipping is an intermodal transport system, inland container movements are often beyond the control of shipping lines. It is vital to understand how the inland transport times and their variability affect the container fleet sizing. This paper first formulates the container fleet sizing problem in liner services with uncertain customer demands and stochastic inland transport times. Simulation-based optimisation approaches are then employed to solve the problem. Two typical shipping services, one cyclic route in trans-Pacific lane and the other more complicated route in Europe–Asia lane, are used as case studies. A quantitative relationship between the optimal container fleet size and the inland transport time is established. The impact of uncertainties in inland times on the fleet sizing is also investigated. The results provide shipping companies useful insights into making strategic decisions.