A fuzzy approach to the location of depots for returned maritime containers

The container depot location problem is usually treated as a cost minimization problem due to the impact of container depots on logistic costs. But these depots, that store the returned empty maritime containers until they are needed, have also an environmental impact in the areas where they are located. In this paper a biobjective model is considered for designing a depots network in a hinterland. The two objectives used are the total cost of the network and the environmental impact generated by the commissioning and maintenance of the container depots and by the transport operations in and out of the depots. As the capacity of a depot is not an exact value, they have been modeled as a fuzzy restriction. An additive fuzzy multiobjective optimization approach has been used to solve the problem. Results were applied to the case of the Port of Valencia, Spain.