1. Introduction

Ranks

1. Top Export Countries: China, Germany, US, Japan…
2. Top Container Ports (2012): Shanghai, Singapore, HK, Shenzhen…
3. Top Container Carriers (2009): APM-Maersk, Mediterranean Shiping Company, CMA CGM, Evergreen Line, …, COSCO

Glossaries for International Freight

• TEU: Twenty-foot equivalent unit, a standard measure for ISO ocean intermodal containers
  • Standard containers: 40’, 45’(2 TEUs), and 20’ (1 TEU)
• DWT: Dead-weight metric tons
  • Maximum weight capacity (cargo, fuel, supplies, crew), or
  • Maximum loaded ship weight
• Metric ton: 1000 kg (~2200 lbs)

Types of Container: (1) “Dry” Container (2) Refrigerated Container (Reefer) (3) Tank Container

Repositioning Empty Containers

• In a perfect world, every container shipment would be matched with a loaded backhaul (返程)
• About 21% of all container movements by ship are empty
• Repositioning costs add US$3.5 billion a year to ocean carrier expenses (US$1.5 billion intra-regional repositioning by road or rail)

Container Terminals

2. Container Port Quayside Problems

• A berth or berthing areain a seaport is where ships are moored for unloading and loading operations
• Vessels arrive over time to the port and need to be served Where should vessels be berthed, and in what order should they be served?
  • Planning problems when conducted with vessel scheduling
  • Operations problems (dynamic) for re-scheduling

Mobile Resource Management

Mobile resources:

• countainers
• chassis
• railcar
• trucks (tracktor)
• …

R: receiving site (white triangle): receive one loaded means generate one empty G: generating site (request empties): generate one loaded means receive one empty

——> menas loaded drayage (a “local” movement) --> menas empty drayage

graph RL;

G((G))
R{R}
P[Port]

G-->P
P.->G
P-->R
R.->P

use positive number to denote generate empty containers, negative number to denote need empty containers (need)

graph LR;

F1("Facility_1 [-1]")
F2("Facility_2 [+1]")
C1("Container_yard")
P1[Port_1]
P2[Port_2]

F1-->P1-->P2-->F2
C1.->F1

FLOW

units of FLOW (units/time, e.g. TEU/week)

For example, for the following service (the number on line is the days needed for shipment), SHA send a vessel per Tuesday with max capacity of 10,000 TEU:

graph LR;
S[SHA]
N[NIN]
D[DAK]
L[LA]

S--2-->N--12-->L
L--2-->D--12-->S

then the max FLOW alone any one line is 10,000, while the sum of all lines is also 10,000

Denotations:

• f: frequency of dispatches along a cycle (units/time, e.g. ships/week, trucks/day)
• H=1/f: headway, the time between consecutive dispatches
• Q: capacity of one vessel (e.g. TEU/ship)
  • Q*f: measure of capacity (e.g. TEU/week)