Mathematical approach for fleet planning under complicated circumstances

In order to facilitate the scientific management of large-sized shipping companies, fleet planning under complicated circumstances has been studied. Based on multiple influencing factors such as the techno-economic status of ships, the investment capacity of company, the possible purchase of new ships, the buying/selling of second-hand vessels and the chartering/renting of ships, a mixed-integer programming model for fleet planning has been established. A large-sized shipping company is utilized to make an empirical study, and Benders decomposition algorithm is employed to test the applicability of the proposed model. The result shows that the model is capable for multi-route, multi-ship and large-scaled fleet planning and thus helpful to support the decision making of large-sized shipping companies.