Bernard Zweers of CWI’s Stochastics group has been awarded the best presentation award at the 24th doctorate workshop of the European Logistics Association (ELA). At Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, he gave the presentation ‘Optimizing inland container terminal operations’. This presentation is based on research with Rob van der Mei and Sandjai Bhulai and in this research, algorithms are developed to move containers as efficiently as possible within a container terminal.
ELA, the European Logistics Association, is a federation of 30 national organisations, covering almost every country in Central and Western Europe as well as European Union's outermost regions, in the Caribbean (Martinique French West Indies). ELA aims to provide an international forum for networking , the promotion and development of the logistics and supply chain profession.
Abstract:
In hinterland container transportation the use of barges is getting more and more important. The researchers propose a real‐life operational planning problem model from an inland terminal operating company, in which the number of containers shipped per barge is maximized and the number of terminals visited per barge is minimized. This problem is solved with an integer linear program (ILP), yielding strong cost reductions, about 20%, compared to the method used currently in practice. Besides, we develop a heuristic that solves the ILP in two stages. First, it decides for each barge which terminals to visit and second it assigns containers to the barges. This heuristic produces almost always optimal solutions and otherwise near‐optimal solutions. Moreover, the heuristic runs much faster than the ILP, especially for large‐sized instances.
Link to paper "Optimizing barge utilization in hinterland container transportation"
Bernard Zweers' personal homepage
ELA best presentation award jury, Bernard Zweers 4th from left.
