Direct shipping service routes with an empty container management strategy

This paper presents an investigation of an empty container management strategy in a two-way four-echelon container supply chain for bilateral trade between two countries. The strategy reduces high maritime transportation costs and long delivery times due to transshipment. The impact of direct shipping was investigated to determine the number of empty containers to be repositioned among selected ports, number of leased containers, and route selection to satisfy the demands for empty and laden containers for exporters and importers in two regions. A hybrid solution procedure based on accelerated particle swarm optimization and heuristic is presented, and corresponding results are compared.