Transit time sensitive liner ship scheduling and container routing problem

Due to globalization, commercial cargo transportation volumes have increased significantly in recent years. Sea transportation has longer transit times than land, rail and air transport. However, due to the possibility of shipping heavy and large cargoes and low transportation costs, most of the commercial transportation needs are met via seaways. Therefore, there is a great competition between companies operating in maritime transportation in terms of both cost and quality of service at an international level. The use of decision support systems which will ensure that the right decisions are made at operational, tactical and strategic levels will play an important role in the development of the sector. Employment of operations research methods is often required in the development of such systems. In this thesis, two main problems in liner transportation, the Liner Ship Scheduling Problem (LSSP) and the Container Routing Problem (CRP), are solved. Since transit times are generally long in maritime transportation, this aspect is regarded as one of the most important criteria for carrier choice of customers. Therefore, in the design of liner schedules offered by maritime transportation companies, it is important to consider the transit times resulting from these schedules. In this thesis, the iterative approach that solves the LSSP and CRP sequentially which allows us to consider the effect of the transit times generated by the schedule on customer demand in addition to the operational cost of the ship schedules is handled. This iterative approach is name as the Liner Ship Scheduling and Container Routing Problem (LSSCRP). Considering the effect of the transit times on customer demand is seen as one of the most important components in increasing the service quality offered to customers. It is believed that taking this factor into account at the tactical level -that is, in the scheduling stage- will reflect positively on the quality of service offered to the customer as well as the profitability of the shipping company. In this thesis, we employ an approach in which the two problems are sequentially solved using an iterative procedure. This iterative approach has potential to improve both the quality of the service provided to customers and the profitability of the liner shipping companies.