Forwarder’s Empty Container Ordering and Coordination Considering Option Trading in the Container Transportation Service Chain

International trade imbalances make the management of empty containers within shipping networks an important economic and ecological problem. While import-dominated ports accumulate large amounts of empty containers, export-dominated ports need them as transport resources, requiring a repositioning transportation of empty containers on the sea and land side. Acknowledging the importance of the problem, plenty of respective literature has appeared. Since periodic review inventory management systems allow to model the inherent stochasticity of empty container transportation, they have emerged as a major solution approach in the domain. Nevertheless, existing approaches often omit crucial economic and ecological real world conditions determining the success of empty container management. Pollution, repair options, and street-turns are important aspects in this context. In this work, we present new stochastic review policies incorporating a realistic allocation scheme for empty container emissions, realistic maintenance, and repair options as well as street-turns. We analyze the optimality of the proposed polices and evaluate them in a simulation model with metaheuristic parameter search based on extensive real-world data from a major global shipping company operating in Latin America. Results provide insights for academics and practitioners about the economic and ecological impact of the distinct empty container management polices within a shipping network.

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Optimization of multi- period empty container repositioning and renting in CHINA RAILWAY Express based on container sharing strategy

European Transport Research Review ◽

10.1186/s12544-021-00498-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Yinying Tang ◽

Si Chen ◽

Yuan Feng ◽

Xinglong Zhu

Keyword(s):

Optimization Method ◽

Complex Problem ◽

Utilization Rate ◽

Container Transportation ◽

Empty Container ◽

Steady Growth ◽

Sharing Strategy ◽

China Railway ◽

The Stability ◽

The Cost

Abstract Background With the steady growth of trade between China and Europe, the number of trains in CHINA RAILWAY Express has steadily increased under the Belt and Road Initiative. By the end of 2019, more than 21,000 trains have been operated. However, in the development of CHINA RAILWAY Express, the cost of empty container transportation and leasing remains high. So, it is necessary to put forward the strategy of container sharing. Aim Through the optimization of empty container transfer and rent under container sharing, this study aim to reduce the operation cost and put forward the strategy of container sharing. Method Considering the dynamic characteristics of empty container transportation in reality, this paper constructs a multi-period empty container transportation optimization model with the lowest total cost and the stability of the network, combining with the container sharing strategy. Lyapunov optimization method is used to transform the complex problem into a single period optimization problem, and then genetic algorithm is used to solve the model. Result Based on the analysis of 13 existing regular train companies, the results show that the model can effectively improve the utilization rate of containers and reduce the cost in the decision-making period. Based on the results and parameters analysis, some suggestions are put forward to optimize the empty container sharing and effectively realize of container sharing.

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Research on the empty container transportation management innovation for import and export enterprises

2012 International Symposium on Management of Technology (ISMOT) ◽

10.1109/ismot.2012.6679472 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

T. W. Kang ◽

S. M. Ju ◽

N. Liu

Keyword(s):

Management Innovation ◽

Container Transportation ◽

Empty Container ◽

Transportation Management ◽

Import And Export

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ON-LINE SCHEDULING OF EMPTY CONTAINERS

Asia Pacific Journal of Operational Research ◽

10.1142/s0217595912500182 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 29 (04) ◽

pp. 1250018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

LELE ZHANG ◽

ANDREW WIRTH

Keyword(s):

Optimization Problem ◽

Operating Cost ◽

Container Shipping ◽

Container Transportation ◽

Competitive Performance ◽

Empty Container ◽

Transportation Management ◽

Empty Container Repositioning ◽

On Line ◽

Empty Containers

This paper considers the empty container repositioning problem in an on-line scheduling setting. This optimization problem arising from container transportation management aims to balance empty containers distribution among transportation sites so as to minimize the total operating cost of loaded container shipping, empty container allocation and leasing. In this highly uncertain on-line environment we introduce a heuristic that does not attempt to balance the empty container distribution, and evaluate its competitive performance mathematically and empirically.

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