Combined ship allocation, routing and freight assignment in tramp shipping

In this paper, we consider the ship routing problem of tramp shipping (SRPTP) and propose a combined mathematical model that simultaneously takes into account the ship allocation, freight assignment and ship routing problems of SRPTP. To solve this problem, we investigate the practical operational issues of SRPTP and develop a genetic algorithm. The empirical studies demonstrate the applicability of the proposed solution scheme for solving real-world problems that are beyond the reach of a widely used commercial optimization package. The technical, computational, practical and calibration issues involved in this unique tramp shipping problem are discussed in detail in this paper. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.