• Journal of the Korean Institute of Navigation
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.11-22
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• 1999

This paper is concerned with the development of a tractable model to assist liner shipping companies in the decision-making of empty container repositioning and leasing. A hybrid methodology is presented which properly accounts for the specific characteristics of empty container management. For this mathematical models are developed based on dynamic network models, covering both land and marine segment. Then a stochastic method is presented to deal with the uncertainty of the future demand and supply. Especially, the concept of opportunity cost has been introduced in order to explain interactions between the variation of the future demand and supply and the stock level at each depot.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.87-95
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• 2004

Economic development is remarkable in Asia and progress of industrialization of NIES, ASEAN, and China in East Asia has increased the international physical distribution in this area. However, an imbalance of trade becomes severe in these areas. The imbalance is especially big in the Asia-North America route and the Japan-China route. The imbalance in the Asia -North America liner route is 5.04 million TEUS in 2002.The transportation ratio of loaded containers between China and Japan route is approximately 3:1 in 2000. In other words, it means that the transportation of loaded containers from China to Japan is 3, the transportation of loaded containers from Japan to China is I. The imbalance at a port is generally obtained by subtracting export loaded container cargo volume from import container cargo volume. However, the imbalance and the empty containers at the port are not always same. Then, in order to evaluate rationalization and efficiency of maritime container transportation, we introduce the amount of empty containers at a port as an evaluation index. However, the past data of the amount of handling empty containers have a lot of lacking portions. Then, it is necessary to estimate the past amount of empty containers in order to grasp the amount of empty containers historically. So, we construct the model that estimates the amount of empty containers using the imbalance of main port statistics in Japan.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.459-468
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• 2016

The decreasing number of import and export containers is causing a problem with container circulation. In particular, this problem has reached a serious level in the Gyeongin area. Empty containers are accumulating in the Gyeongin container yard, where most of the returned containers are stored. In order to improve the empty container return problem at Gyeonhin, this study analyzes the actual situation and the empty container return process. A preference survey was conducted to suggest solutions from the perspective of users rather than shippers. A logistics company's data was analyzed to identify the inefficient cost structure in the Gyeongin area. The results show that the empty container return problem in Gyeongin is becoming more and more serious. To solve this problem, this paper proposes reestablishing functions at the Incheon Port, and securing a third new storage terminal in the Gyeongin area. Finally, an efficient empty container circulation system is presented. It will also be necessary to prepare laws and institutions to ensure these solutions.

• The Journal of Bigdata
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.85-98
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• 2021

The pandemic of COVID-19 further promoted the imbalance in the volume of imports and exports among countries using containers, which worsened the shortage of empty containers. Since it is important to secure as many empty containers as the appropriate demand for stable and efficient port operation, measures to predict demand for empty containers using various techniques have been studied so far. However, it was based on long-term forecasts on a monthly or annual basis rather than demand forecasts that could be used directly by ports and shipping companies. In this study, a daily and weekly prediction method using an actual artificial neural network is presented. In details, the demand forecasting model has been developed using multi-layer perceptron and multiple linear regression model. In order to overcome the limitation from the lack of data, it was manipulated considering the business process between the loaded container and empty container, which the fully-loaded container is converted to the empty container. From the result of numerical experiment, it has been developed the practically applicable forecasting model, even though it could not show the perfect accuracy.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.197-208
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• 2019

This paper assessed the impacts of the specification of the yard, handling equipment, and operation approaches on the expected number of re-handles during the loading operation for empty containers. When the various types of empty containers from multiple shipping liners are placed in separate spaces from each other, then the storage space cannot be fully utilized. So as to increase the utilization of the storage space, empty containers from multiple vessel liners are stored together incurring additional re-handles during the loading operation. Several formulas are derived for the estimation of the expected number of handles, including re-handles, for empty container retrieval from a bay. Transfer cranes and top handlers are utilized as handling equipment and various retrieval strategies are examined. Numerical analysis was conducted to assess the effects of various designs and operational parameters of the container stacking yard on the expected number of handles.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.28-40
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• 2010

One of the most important objectives of the schedules in a container terminal is to minimize the ship operation time, which consists of discharging and loading operation times. Recently, dual cycling techniques have been used for improving terminal operations, especially for reducing the total empty trips of handling equipment. The main focus of this study is to reduce the empty trip times of yard trucks with minimum delays for ship operations. A heuristic algorithm, modified from a previous algorithm, is proposed to solve this problem. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate the effect of different types of discharging and loading schedules and different locating methods for discharging containers in terms of the performance of the system, including the percentage of the dual cycle operations of yard trucks.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.156-165
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• 2005

A new heuristic algorithm for the heterogeneous single container loading problem is proposed in this paper, This algorithm fills empty spaces with the homogeneous load-blocks of identically oriented boxes and splits residual space into three sub spaces starting with an empty container. An initial loading pattern is built by applying this approach recursively until all boxes are exhausted or no empty spaces are left. In order to generate alternative loading patterns, the load-blocks of pattern determining spaces are replaced with the alternatives that were generated on determining the load-blocks. An improvement algorithm compares these alternatives with the initial pattern to find improved one. Numerical experiments with 715 test cases show the good performance of this new algorithm, above all for problems with strongly heterogeneous boxes.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.331-340
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• 2018

Shipping containers promote rapid development of the transport industry, and generate economic and social value. However, problems often occur due to imbalance in dynamics between exports and imports, container relocation, traffic congestion, and general shipping network designs. So, efficient and cost-effective cargo management has become crucial for the Jeju Island - Mokpo container route (JMCR) in South Korea. Dozens of recent studies reveal that collapsible or foldable containers, may become an innovative solution to problematic issues within the shipping industry. The major purpose of this study is to discuss conditions required for successful commercial application of foldable containers, based on a cost-benefit analysis precisely for the JMCR. Findings reveal usage of foldable containers can be cost-effective, if containers make a "FULL<->EMPTY" route. To the contrary, a "FULL<->FULL" route can drastically increase expenditure. However, economic analysis of actual figures for 2010-2015 indicate that benefits for Mokpo - Jeju direction are significant to cover losses on the Jeju - Mokpo line. Seasonal patterns and mixing percentages of foldable and standard containers on the route, may also produce cost-effective solutions. Sensitivity analysis reveals that benefits from using foldable containers, depend mostly on empty container shares in addition to various extra costs.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.201-209
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• 2005

Empty moves are necessary when there are imbalances among transportation demands from source locations to destination locations and the transportation demands require empty equipment that must be supplied to source locations. When the amount of the inflow exceeds that of the outflow or the amount of the outflow exceeds that of the inflow, repositioning empty equipment is necessary. Examples of the empty equipment are containers, chassis, and pallets. This paper addresses how to estimate the empty moves on several typical transportation networks. Types of transportation networks considered are chain, tree, cycle, tree of cycles, and hybrid networks. Simple procedures are suggested for determining the optimal empty flows. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate procedures in this paper.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2020.11a
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• pp.953-955
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• 2020

공컨테이너(Empty Container)는 적컨테이너(Full Container)와 달리, 화물이 적재되지 않은 비어있는 컨테이너로 공컨테이너 재고는 수출에 비해 수입이 많은 항만에서, 수요는 수입에 비해 수출이 많은 항만에서 발생한다. 그러나 수입과 수출은 기간, 지역에 따라 유동적이기 때문에 수요와 재고량 예측에 어려움이 있는데, 본 연구에서는 자기회귀누적이동평균(ARIMA)과 머신러닝 기법을 활용하여 이를 예측하는 방법을 제시한다. 본 연구에 활용된 데이터와 프로그램 소스코드는 Kaggle 에 공개되어 있다.