Selection of Container Shipping Routes

The characteristic of container routing problem was analyzed.A stochastic programming model was established for selection of container shipping routes,and in the model uncertainty in container demands was taken into consideration.The maximum profit of transportation was taken as target function,and the major constraints include the limitations due to the capacities of a route section and shipping capacity of carriers,and the demands on loaded and empty containers.The demands on loaded containers are stochastic.Chance-constrained programming method was used to solve the model.Simulation was conducted to validate the feasibility of the model.Simulation results indicate that shipping capacity and transportation price are main factors influencing container route selection,but a change in transportation price of a port pair has a little effect on container route selection.