Study On The Route Structure Model Decision Of Container Liner Transportation

This paper addresses a problem, with the enlargement trend of the container ship and the obvious transfer role of container terminal, that how to decide the right route structure model of the container shipping line , and then demonstrate this problem with the Sino-US West Coast container liner transportation.About more than half a century, the general cargo shipment had containerized because of the advantages of container shipment. Among the cut -throat competition of shipping market, driven by the scale economic effects, the liner company built larger and lager container ship one after another, in other to reduce the unit shipping cost. So the tendency of the enlargement container ship is developing remarkably. As a result of the enlargement trend of the container ship, the container terminal is playing a more and more important role of cargo transit. Since then, a new container shipping network, Hub and Spoke, have sprung up, called the hub port structure model. So the hub port structure model and the basic port structure model is Co-existence. It is very important that choose a right route structure model to gain the most economic benefit of container shipping line. But no criterion about this problem has been reached so far. The manager always makes the decision according to the experience or the tradition. As the world economy and international trade has a sharp slow-down at the latter half of 2008, shipping market and liner company is suffering an intensive impact. Under the circumstances it is essential that design an optimal route and lower the shipping cost to liner company. Based on the above considerations, this paper will make a deep analysis about how to choose a right route structure model of container shipping line.First, in the paper, it introduce the hub port route structure model from the point of view of container ship and container terminal's development, and make a comparative analysis with the basic port route structure model. After assaying the cost of the container shipment, I set up the optimization model respectively using INLP, and the objective function is the cost minimum. I generalize the functional relationship between container capacity and time charter rate, fuel oil consumption and speed. Finally, I make a numerical experimentation of Sino-US West Coast container line transportation.