Optimal Inventory Control for Empty Containers in a Port with Random Demands and Repositioning Delays

In this paper the authors assert that due to trade imbalances and demand fluctuations, the inventory control of empty containers in ports is an important managerial issue for liner shipping companies, and the stochastic factors in the system and the time delay in container repositioning make the problem very challenging. The objective of the authors is to find the optimal policy for empty container management in a port with random customer demand and time delays in repositioning. As a means of achieving this objective, the authors suggest a mathematical formulation of the problem and derive the optimal policy using discrete-time dynamic programming. A policy is proposed, and an analysis of the performance is presented. A full factorial experiment is then designed and implemented to compare the performance of various policies.