Hub-and-spoke network design problem under uncertainty considering financial and service issues: A two-phase approach

Research on strategic liner ship fleet planning with regard to hub-and-spoke network

In order to obtain the biggest economic benefits, large shipping firms widely use hub-and-spoke network to operate ships. The reasonable shipping network not only decreases the cost of infrastructure construction to achieve scale economies, but also be efficient to allocate the existing resources of maritime business. Shipping firms usually are in pursuit of the large-scale container ship, leading some firms to blindly upgrade vessels and cause the loss of profit. Since the operating costs and transportation time is the major problem for shipping firms to get more profit, in this study, we research the relationship of route design, fleet planning and container freight to build the objective function in view of the minimization of time and cost. This study proposes the mixed integer linear programming model of hub-and-spoke network and liner ship fleet planning to choose the appropriate ship location and distribution, and applies Lagrange Heuristic Algorithm to solve the model. The simulation results verify the validity of this algorithm, showing that when firms invest the large ship, it usually gets lower freight rate, by contrast, small vessels have cost and scale advantages. But in order to cope with changes in market demand, for the operations of shipping firms, owning large vessels are still necessary. Our two-phase model considers problems comprehensively to complete the network design of liner ship fleet planning. Lagrange Heuristic Algorithm can get high quality solutions in a relatively short time, it provides reference significance for solving related problems in the future.

Hub-and-Spoke Logistics Network Considering Pricing and Co-Opetition

With the rapid development of the logistics market, the construction of an efficient “channel + hub + network” logistics system, that is, a hub-and-spoke logistics network, is of great importance to enterprises. In particular, how to reduce costs and increase efficiency in both the construction of network facilities and actual operations, and to formulate reasonable prices for the logistics service needs in the entire market are crucial strategies and decisions for enterprises. Under such a background, this article starts from the perspective of duopoly logistics enterprises that jointly build networks and allow the transfer of surplus capacity and carbon credits, and studies the hub-and-spoke logistics network design that also considers the relationship between service pricing and co-opetition. Considering the corporate profit and difficulty of implementation as a whole, the co-opetition is a better choice than the complete competition and perfect cooperation. In addition, the remaining capacity of the company, the transfer of carbon credits, the joint construction and sharing of hubs, and strategic cooperation in the area of corporate common pricing under the price framework agreement are conducive to the realization of an increase in corporate operating profits, a better market share and more favorable pricing.

Modeling and empirical analysis of regional hub-and-spoke road-rail combined transport network based on uncertain cost-time-demand

Taking into account the uncertainties of the factors of in-transit transportation cost, hub transshipment cost, hub construction cost, in-transit transportation time, hub transshipment time, and demand, this study uses triangular fuzzy numbers, expected value criteria, and distribution of credibility measure to minimise the total transportation cost of the hub-and-spoke road-rail combined transport (RRCT) network and the maximum transportation limit time between the origin and destination of the network. Firstly, a non-linear programming mathematical model is constructed for the regional hub-and-spoke RRCT network based on uncertain cost-time-demand. Then, an improved genetic algorithm is designed to obtain an optimized scheme. The algorithm uses genetic algorithm to search the global space, and uses two local search methods, i.e. shift and exchange, to search the local space. Finally, the RRCT network along the Yaan-Linzhi section of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway is used as the research object to verify the applicability and effectiveness of the regional hub-and-spoke RRCT network model and the algorithm proposed in the study.