A Liner Shipping Speed Optimization Model to Reduce Bunker Cost and Pollutants Emitted

摘要

Environmental impact has become one of the most relevant issues in liner shipping during theudrecent years. Maritime shipping is responsible for the 2.7 per cent of the world CO2 emissions,udof which 25 per cent is attributable to container ships. This business also produces a significantudquantity of sulphur, a very dangerous substance for human health, especially if it is emitted inudareas next to the coast. At the same time, bunker cost represents the biggest portion of theudoperational cost of a shipping company. Slow steaming is a cheap and effective strategy from bothudsave pollutants emissions and bunker cost. Moreover, it can be immediately put into practice. Thisudreport introduces a Mixed Integer Programming Model to solve the Liner Shipping Routing andudSpeed Optimization Problem (LSRSOP). The final goal is to find the best route and to optimizeudthe the sailing speed of the vessel considering the Emission Control Areas and maximum transitudtimes between ports. Two Heuristic Methods -the 2-Steps Method and the Simulated Annealingareudproposed to solve big instances that would require too much running time to be solved untiludoptimality. Both of them use a Hill-Climbing Algorithm that generates a slight different route fromuda given one. A Bi-Objective Function Model has been designed for instances whose the optimaludsolution can be found in reasonable time. It considers the operative cost of the vessel and theudexternal cost of emissions. The results show efficient solutions that are the "golden line" betweenudthe most convenient solution for the company and the most sustainable solution.