Integrating Fleet Deployment into the Liner Shipping Cargo Allocation Problem

Liner carriers change their network on a regular basis, and they are therefore interested in a practical evaluation of the impact these changes have on the cargo flows in their networks. Despite great advancements in the practical applicability of network evaluators in recent years, vessel deployment continues to be considered as an input into the problem, rather than a decision. In this paper, we propose an extension of a state-of-the-art mixed-integer programming model for the LSCAP that incorporates the optimization of vessel count and vessel classes for each service. We perform a computational analysis on liner shipping networks of different sizes and compare our optimized results to fixed deployment scenarios. By integrating fleet deployment decisions into the cargo allocation problem, liner carriers can increase the profitability of their networks by at least 2.8 to 16.9% and greatly enhance their decision making.