Minimizing overstowage in master bay plans of large container ships

Abstract

This study proposes a mathematical model that minimizes overstowage in class-based master bay plans for large container ships. With the advantage of an underlying multi-commodity network structure, solutions are obtained within reasonable computation time in the case of 14,000-TEU ships. In addition, changeable bay configuration patterns due to different container sizes-an important but rarely discussed issue-are efficiently addressed by adding specially designed arcs and side constraints. Our model can support container stowage planners by providing a flexible and efficient approach for allocating ship slots to containers of different lengths when preparing class-based master bay plans for large container ships.