A reactive container rerouting model for container flow recovery in a hub-and-spoke liner shipping network

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the container rerouting due to a disruption, aims at making the optimal container flow recovery plan for the affected liner shipping company. First, we make the initial effort to bring up with a basic framework of disruption management for liner shipping. Second, we present a compact integer linear programming model for addressing the container rerouting problem under the proposed framework in a hub-and-spoke liner shipping network, based on a given recovery vessel schedule that determines to omit a port of call. Other shipping companies’ services and other modes (roadway, railway, and airline) as candidate alternative means to transport the miss-connected containers are also incorporated in the proposed model. The container flow recovery plan would select the optimal alternative paths for the miss-connected containers balancing the trade-off between container transport costs and delivery delay penalty costs. Finally, a case study from a global liner shipping company is investigated and the computational results indicate the model can be solved effectively and efficiently for the real-scale problem. Thus, the proposed approach in this paper can supply real-time decision support tool for the liner shipping operators on handling the process of container flow recovery.

KEYWORDS:

• Disruption management
• liner shipping
• container flow recovery
• container rerouting
• hub-and-spoke network

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to give special thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on this paper, as they have improved the work significantly.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.