Managing Surcharge Risk in Strategic Fleet Deployment: A Partial Relaxed MIP Model Framework with a Case Study on China-Built Ships
Container liner shipping companies operate within a complex environment where they must balance profitability and service reliability. Meanwhile, evolving regulatory policies, such as surcharges imposed on ships of a particular origin or type on specific trade lanes, introduce new operational challe...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-08-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/15/8582 |
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| Summary: | Container liner shipping companies operate within a complex environment where they must balance profitability and service reliability. Meanwhile, evolving regulatory policies, such as surcharges imposed on ships of a particular origin or type on specific trade lanes, introduce new operational challenges. This study addresses the heterogeneous ship routing and demand acceptance problem, aiming to maximize two conflicting objectives: weekly profit and total transport volume. We formulate the problem as a bi-objective mixed-integer programming model and prove that the ship chartering constraint matrix is totally unimodular, enabling the reformulation of the model into a partially relaxed MIP that preserves optimality while improving computational efficiency. We further analyze key mathematical properties showing that the Pareto frontier consists of a finite union of continuous, piecewise linear segments but is generally non-convex with discontinuities. A case study based on a realistic liner shipping network confirms the model’s effectiveness in capturing the trade-off between profit and transport volume. Sensitivity analyses show that increasing freight rates enables higher profits without large losses in volume. Notably, this paper provides a practical risk management framework for shipping companies to enhance their adaptability under shifting regulatory landscapes. |
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| ISSN: | 2076-3417 |