Research On Ports Selecting Model For Container Lines

Container liner shipping follows particular routes during certain periods, which contain fixed intervals and named ports. But these fixed routes are not invariable. While market changes, liner companies need to adjust and update to catch up with the pace of market.From the second half of the year 2002, global container shipping market began to recover from the bottom, and by the year of 2004, the whole shipping industry reached a crescendo. The sudden accelerated growing demand of freight stimulated the extra slot demand of the shipping companies, with which the purchase market and new-building market also bloomed. From the year of 2005, mass of new vessels entered. The growth of capacity became faster than the demand of freight, which led to capacity excess. This thesis aims to discuss how to distribute this new and surplus capacity to the market reasonably and economically and how to lay out their ports of call and schedules according to the technical features of these ships.The thesis analyzed the main characteristics of current container shipping market, with the conclusion of that, based on the technical requirement of increasing the size of containership, and the economical premise of oversupply in the market, to design a liner route needs to consider the cost of the laterals sufficiently. Thus the ports selecting model for container line developed in the thesis combined the selection of ports of transshipment to the layout of the routes. While calculating, every selected port of call was considered as a transshipment port, while others were considered as feeder ports. The model based on specific ship and target lines, with the goal of maximum voyage profit and minimum voyage time, concluded the optimum combination of ports of call. In the end, the ports selection of a 850TEU containership in China-Japan line was taken as an example, to explain the application of the model and to verify its accuracy.