A SIMULATION STUDY ON INLAND CONTAINER AND TRUCK SCHEDULING OPTIMIZATION

Inland container transportation, as a continuation of sea transportation, is crucial for ensuring the efficient flow of cargo entering and leaving ports. Optimizing the configuration of the inland transportation network and the organization of container dispatching services is vital for container shipping companies to ensure high-quality "door-to-door" service. This paper develops a container transportation network model incorporating an Inland Container Depot (ICD), then, establishes an inland container-truck scheduling model. A mixed integer programming model is developed to address the scheduling of imported empty containers, imported full containers, exported empty containers, exported full containers, and trucks. The model is validated using real data from a container shipping company, and the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) algorithm is proposed to solve the model efficiently. The simulation results indicate that establishing ICDs and planning truck and empty container scheduling within this transportation network can effectively reduce drayage transportation costs.