The Robust Bulk Ship Routing Problem with Batched Cargo Selection

Abstract Maritime transportation forms the backbone of world merchandise trade. In this paper, we consider a problem that combines three interconnected subproblems in tramp shipping: fleet adjustment problem, cargo selection and ship routing problem. For selection, decision behaviors under setting Contract Affreightment (COA), which cargoes should be rejected or accepted as batch. view uncertainties observed maritime transportation, formulate robust way so solutions can protect profitability shipping companies against variations voyage costs. We first provide compact mixed integer linear programming formulations for then convert them into strengthened set covering model. A tailored branch-and-price-and-cut algorithm is developed to solve The enhanced by multi-cut generation technique aimed at tightening lower bounds primal heuristic finding high-quality upper bounds. Extensive computational results show our yields optimal near-optimal realistic instances within short computing times enhancement techniques significantly improve efficiency algorithm.