Ship Routing and Scheduling: Status and Perspectives

TLDR

Routing and scheduling problems are closely related to many fleet‑planning issues, prompting this review to be organized into distinct parts. The paper reviews the current status of ship routing and scheduling and outlines future perspectives on optimization‑based decision‑support systems. It surveys literature from the past decade, covering strategic fleet planning, tactical and operational routing, various shipping modes, and naval applications. Trends reveal growing demand for and benefits from such systems, and the review aims to stimulate further research.

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to review the current status of ship routing and scheduling. We focus on literature published during the last decade. Because routing and scheduling problems are closely related to many other fleet planning problems, we have divided this review into several parts. We start at the strategic fleet planning level and discuss the design of fleets and sea transport systems. We continue with the tactical and operational fleet planning level and consider problems that comprise various ship routing and scheduling aspects. Here, we separately discuss the different modes of operations: industrial, tramp, and liner shipping. Finally, we take a glimpse at naval applications and other related problems that do not naturally fall into these categories. The paper also presents some perspectives regarding future developments and use of optimization-based decision-support systems for ship routing and scheduling. Several of the trends indicate both accelerating needs for and benefits from such systems and, hopefully, this paper will stimulate further research in this area.