Container Liner Service Optimization Design Research

The container liner routing optimization problem is an important strategic decision for liner companies. It relates directly to the choice of ship type and the calling frequency. It has long-term effects on operating costs and benefits of the liner companies. With the demand volatility in container shipping market in recent years, the liner capacity is more than enough and liner companies are suffering more serious competitions. In view of the excess shipping capacity market conditions, to optimize the route design and improve the quality of shipping service are important ways to keep the market share of liner companies.Currently, academia and industry circles only consider liner companies’ operating costs, while ignoring the shipper’ inventory costs in the study of liner system optimization problem. The inventory costs generate when cargoes are waiting for shipment or are shipping at sea. If only stand at the point of liner company, it is likely to transfer the liner company’s more profits as cost to the shipper. As a result, the container liner service system is not to achieve the optimum. In order to improve the route optimization issue of liner companies, combining with the characteristics of container liner shipping route, this article has constructed the container liner routing optimization model, through consideration of both the inventory costs related with shipper and the liner company’s operating costs.This paper firstly introduces the concepts and theories about the container liner routing optimization problem, including concept, characteristics, processes and necessities, etc. Thus, a detailed study of container liner routing system is carried out. The container liner service system is divided into liner company’s shipping system and shipper’ inventory system.And introduces the factors of container liner routing optimization problem. And through the analysis of container shipping process and the relationship of decision factors, classifies the shipper’s inventory costs which correlate with the shipping process as well as the carrier’s operating costs. Then, this paper creates a container liner routing optimization model, and analyzes the operating cost model of the liner company and the inventory cost model of shipper in detail. Finally, an experimental study is designed, and Matlab software is used to solve the model. The results verify the feasibility and efficiency of the model.