A simulation study for evaluating a slot allocation model for a liner shipping network

Start Page
354
End Page
369
Citation
Computational logistics : second international conference, ICCL 2011, Hamburg, Germany, September 19 - 22, 2011 ; proceedings / Jürgen W. Böse; Hao Hu; Carlos Jahn; Xiaoning Shi; Robert Stahlbock; Stefan Voß (eds.). - Berlin [u.a.] : Springer, 2011. - (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) ; 6971). - Seite 354-369
Contribution to Conference
ICCL 2011, 2nd International Conference on Computational Logistics 2011, Hamburg  
Publisher DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-24264-9_26
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-80054077943
Publisher
Springer
Revenue management (RM) methods are still only rarely used in the liner shipping industry. Usually, skilled employees make the decisions whether to accept or reject a booking and decision support systems are not commonly used. But for maximizing a company's profit it can be crucial to make the right decisions for each booking request and therefore such a system can make an important contribution to success. In this work, a discrete-event simulation model for container bookings is developed, including a quantitative slot allocation model which takes into account different segmentations, the network structure of liner shipping with the possibility of transshipments, and the existence of different round trips of ships on the services. With a simulation study, different scenarios, networks and input settings can be evaluated regarding their performance, to determine the best strategy for the company. In this study, the incoming bookings are simulated and the decision whether a booking is to be accepted or rejected is based on the capacity that is available in the respective booking class according to the solution of the slot allocation model. This booking limit (BL) strategy is compared to a "first come first serve" (FCFS) strategy and to an optimal strategy (OS) which is based on the assumption that all bookings are known in advance. The results show that the BL strategy is recommendable for liner shipping companies, as it leads to significant profit increases compared to FCFS. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.
Subjects
simulation
slot allocation
liner shipping
Network Optimization
modeling
DDC Class
004: Informatik
330: Wirtschaft
380: Handel, Kommunikation, Verkehr