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Reducing hinterland transportation costs through container sharing

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Abstract

Based on two scenarios which describe the movement of full and empty containers within seaport hinterland transportation, this contribution determines possible benefits of exchanging empty containers between cooperating trucking companies. In the first scenario, trucking companies only have access to their own containers. In the second scenario, empty containers are permitted to be interchanged among several owners. Descriptions of both scenarios are given by comprehensive mathematical formulations considering vehicle routing, simultaneously with empty container repositioning. Realistic-sized instances are solved by applying an efficient tabu search heuristic. The results show that container sharing between trucking companies leads to remarkable cost savings.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Business Studies, University of Bremen, Wilhelm-Herbst-Str. 5, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Sebastian Sterzik & Herbert Kopfer

  2. Department of Industrial Engineering, Pusan National University, Pusan, 609-735, Korea

    Won-Young Yun

Authors
  1. Sebastian Sterzik
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  2. Herbert Kopfer
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  3. Won-Young Yun
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Herbert Kopfer.

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Sterzik, S., Kopfer, H. & Yun, WY. Reducing hinterland transportation costs through container sharing. Flex Serv Manuf J 27, 382–402 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10696-012-9167-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10696-012-9167-y

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