A parcel tanker is an ocean carrier that has multiple compartments to hold multiple liquid chemical cargoes and prevent them from mixing.Management of parcel tankers entails several operational constraints.The types of cargoes that their compartments can hold depend on(1)construction materials and coatings of compartments and(2)contents of neighboring compartments.Furthermore,the weights of cargoes among the compartments must be properly distributed to ensure ship stability.Cargo loading and unloading,compartment cleaning requirements,and draft limitations complicate the parcel tanker operation and route planning even further.To the best of the authors'knowledge,none of the existing models that address routing and scheduling of parcel tankers considers the aforementioned operational constraints simultaneously.To address this research gap,we introduce a new routing and scheduling model that explicitly considers the unique operational limitations of parcel tankers.Essentially our new model involves deciding which ports the ship should visit and in which sequence,which cargoes it should pickup and unload,and to which compartments each cargo should be assigned and when over the entire trip so as to maximize the profit for the ship.Finally,we also apply our new model on a case study to illustrate the importance of including cargo compatibility and ship stability constraints in routing and scheduling of a parcel tanker.
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