An optimization model of container marine transport with COA approach

With the widespread utilization of mega-containerships, the economies of scale becomes more and more obviously. In order to get more benefits, a hub-and-spoke model for the container transportation network is provided here. Then the chaos optimization algorithm (COA) is applied to solve the complicated network optimization problem. Chaos has many good properties in nonlinear systems, such as ergodicity, stochastic properties and regularity. It is a chaotic motion which can go non-repeatedly through every state in a certain domain. Based on these properties, the effective optimization method is proposed in this paper to solve this complex optimization problem. The simulation results indicate that the COA can achieve a reasonable optimum transportation network mostly the sea route, vessel volume and service frequency of the vessel, in the meantime, we provide a reference model for containers transportation network layout.