Containership routing with time deadlines and simultaneous deliveries and pick-ups

In this paper we seek to determine optimal routes for a containership fleet performing pick-ups and deliveries between a hub and several spoke ports. A capacitated vehicle routing problem with pick-ups, deliveries and time deadlines is formulated and solved using a hybrid genetic algorithm for establishing routes for a dedicated containership fleet. Results on the performance of the algorithm and the feasibility of the approach show that a relatively small fleet of containerships could provide efficient services within deadlines. Moreover, through sensitivity analysis we discuss performance robustness and consistency of the developed algorithm under a variety of problem settings and parameters values.