Multiport cooperative location model with a safe-corridors setting in West Africa

This paper develops a programme model with equilibrium constraints for decision-making regarding a multihub port location in West Africa. To consider the high security risks associated with inland areas of West Africa and the poor reliability of inland transport systems, this model takes the lowest regional generalised transport cost as the optimisation goal and simultaneously optimises three features: the choice of ports to invest in, the port expansion plans and the inland safe-corridors (railway lines) design. By introducing a few complementary conditions, the model can reasonably portray the influence of a large number of shippers' noncooperative game relationships on the location of the hub ports. To solve this model, a hybrid active set algorithm embedded with the Frank-Wolfe method is proposed. Using the above model and algorithm, we designed an optimal investment quota-setting and investment plan for the Chinese government involving the hub port construction in West Africa.