Received October 10, 2020, accepted November 8, 2020, date of publication November 16, 2020,

date of current version November 27, 2020.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3037675

Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block

Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping
JUN LI 1, YU ZHANG2 , ZHIXIONG LIU3 , AND XIAOLEI LIANG1 , (Member, IEEE)
1 School of Automobile and Traffic Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430065, China
2 School of Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, China
3 School of Machinery and Automation, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430065, China

Corresponding author: Jun Li (lj_whut1989@163.com)

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 71372202 and Grant 61603280.

ABSTRACT The stowage planning and block relocation problem (SPBRP) consider the relations between
stowage planning and block relocation comprehensively, in which the retrieval sequence of containers in
yard and the stowage plan of a ship are concerned. In this paper, an integer programming formulation
called SPBRP-I is presented for the proposed problem in inland container liner shipping to minimize the
total number of relocations in yard and re-handles in ship. To deal with the utilization preference in inland
shipping, the minimization of ship stack occupancy number is introduced into SPBRP-I to develop a new
model called SPBRP-II. In view of the complexity of problem-solving, a heuristic algorithm (HA) based on
priority sorting, retrieval and local search strategies is proposed to achieve the efficient optimization. The
algorithm consists of three parts including the yard container retrieving, yard container relocation and ship
stowage planning. Finally, the container liner shipping on the Yangtze River is chosen with some typical ships
for the case study. Numerical results show that SPBRP-II performs better than the original SPBRP-I, and
it’s more suitable for solving the small-sized cases. Compared with the models, the algorithm with retrieval
strategy RS1 (HA_RS1) can achieve the efficient problem solving with high-quantity solutions and very
short computational time.

INDEX TERMS Inland container shipping, stowage planning, block relocation, integer programming,
heuristic algorithm.

I. INTRODUCTION the container transport demands between different ports of

The national strategy of building China’s strength in trans-
portation highlights the status of inland waterway transporta-
tion system in the country. As the important link in connecting
the country’s inland and coastal economical trade, the inland
waterway transportation plays an important role for the exter-
nal trade of the urban agglomeration along the river. The fast
developments of urban economies and cargo containeriza-
tion have enabled the rapid development of inland container
transport. Figure 1 shows the container shipping network of
the Yangtze River, where Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing, and
Shanghai are hub ports belonging to the trunk line of the river
(Li et al. [1]). The container transport between different ports
of the Yangtze River is mainly undertaken by inland container
liner shipping. It is organized by the liner company to meet
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and
approving it for publication was Sun-Yuan Hsieh . cies between the actual and reported container information.
the fixed shipping lines.
Nowadays, the duplicate construction and economic com-
petitions between the inland container ports highlight the
ship owners’ dominant positions in container shipping along
the Yangtze River. Due to the surplus transport capacity in
inland shipping, ship owners prefer the capacity utilization in
stowage planning for enabling a lowering of transport costs.
Meanwhile, typical inland container ships on the Yangtze
River are refitted by bulk-cargo ships. The physical charac-
teristics of the ship (i.e., small size and no hatch covers) leave
it fewer options for using ballast water to modify stability. It’s
more difficult to achieve the coordinating stability adjustment
and efficiently using full ship capacity.
Comparing with the seaports, the informatization construc-
tion of the terminals along the Yangtze River is in a relatively
lower level. The information of containers is mainly declared
by the cargo owners, which results in the inconsisten-

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 J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping
FIGURE 1. The container shipping network of the Yangtze River.
The inconsistencies often make the manually made pre-
stowage plan becoming unreasonable. Then the re-handles
will be necessary for the ship’s stability. Re-handle is an extra
operation required to move a container or temporarily unload
a container to gain access to the one stowed below it, which
is both time and money consuming. Also, the unreasonable
plan may cause relocations in yard during the loading process.
In order to retrieve a certain container in yard, all the contain-
ers on its top in one stack must be relocated. This operation is
called the relocation which is an expensive and unproductive
movement.
To meet the practical operation requirements of inland
container shipping along the Yangtze River, the existing
pre-stowage planning problem could be overcome by making
a stowage plan with the actual container information. Once
all the containers have arrived in the yard of a terminal, their
actual information becomes known. With the given containers
in the yard, how to assign these containers into the ship while
considering their retrieval sequences becomes the key of
stowage planning. It reveals that there is a close relationship
between the stowage planning and block relocation prob-
lem in inland container shipping. Thus, the decision-making
problem which concerns the two problems comprehensively
should be considered. We refer to it as the stowage planning
and block relocation problem (SPBRP).
In this paper, the following four aspects have been accom-
plished for optimizing the proposed problem: (a) An integer
programming model (SPBRP-I) is constructed; (b) Consider-
ing the ship capacity utilization, a modified model SPBRP-II
is proposed; (c) A heuristic algorithm (HA) is developed to
solve the SPBRP efficiently; (d) The effectiveness of mod-
els and HA is validated by a considerable of computational
experiments based on realistic scenarios.
The rest of the article is organized as follows: in Section 2,
the existing literature and related works are reviewed; The
details of SPBRP are described in Section 3; the mathematical
models for SPBRP based on integer programming formula-
tion is constructed in Section 4; the model solving method
is introduced in Section 5; a heuristic algorithm is designed
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in Section 6; details of computational experiments performed
to assess optimization of models and algorithm are described
in Section 7; and finally, conclusions and future work are
discussed in Section 8.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
A. CONTAINER STOWAGE PLANNING PROBLEM
The container stowage planning problem (CSPP) consists
of determining how to assign the containers in yard into
a ship. In general, the ship’s constraints of stability and
capacity should be fulfilled to minimize its berthing time or
the number of re-handles in ship. State-of-the-art research
on this problem generally concerns the maritime container
shipping and applies a two-phase approach. Due to the large
size of ship in maritime shipping, the existing research which
studied CSSP wholly formulates grossly abstracted model of
the ship spaces (Dubrovsky et al. [2]; Ding and Chou [3]).
Comparing with these monolithic models, the two-phase
approach could achieve better performing solutions, in which
the CSSP is divided into two sub-problems: master bay
planning problem (MBPP) and slot planning problem (SPP)
(Parreño et al. [4]). The two-phase approach originates from
Wilson and Roach [5], [6]. Kang and Kim [7] designed a
greedy heuristic for the MBPP and a tree search method for
the SPP.
Dealing with the MBPP, Ambrosino et al. [8], [9] for-
mulate a basic 0-1 linear programming model, and present
a heuristic procedure and a three-step heuristic tabu-based
search. Sciomachen and Tanfani [10] relate the problem to
a 3D bin packing problem (3D-BPP) and propose a heuris-
tic method inspired by the branch-and-bound algorithm.
Moura et al. [11] study the MBPP with the ship routing
problem to present a mixed integer programming model. The
MBPP has been expanded to the multi-port master planning
problem (MP-MBPP). Zhang et al. [12] study the CSSP based
on bin-packing problem and design the tabu search heuristic
algorithms for solving MP-MBPP and SPP. Pacino et al. [13]
formulate an integer programming model of MB-MBPP, and
a combination of constraint programming model and local
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J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping
search for the SPP. Ambrosino et al. [14]–[16] investigate
MP-MBPP with the mixed integer programming and heuristic
algorithms.
As for the SPP, Delgado et al. [17] focus on the con-
tainer stowage problem for below deck locations (CSPBDL),
and the constraint programming and integer programming
are utilized to formulate the models. Parreño et al. [4] pro-
posed a novel integer programming formulation and a Greedy
Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP). The new
algorithm can obtain high-quality solutions within 1 sec-
ond. With the constructive heuristic introduced in Parreño
et al. [4], Korach et al. [18] present an efficient ruin-and-
recreate matheuristic based on an integer programming model
and a heuristic search framework.
Besides the CSSP in maritime shipping, only few works
concern this problem in inland shipping. The CSSP in
inland container shipping involves different problems and
objectives than maritime shipping (Li et al. [1]; Fazi [19];
Li et al. [20]). In Li et al. [1], the multi-port stowage planning
problem along the Yangtze River is formulated as a stochastic
programming model considering the weight of the containers
to be uncertain. They propose three solution methods includ-
ing two exact approaches and a hybrid neighborhood search
algorithm based on heuristics. Fazi [19] develop two novel
mathematical formulations in inland shipping considering the
ship’s stability. The first one aims to maximize the number
of containers on board, and the other one obtains a feasible
handling sequence of containers to ensure the stability during
the loading/unloading process. Li et al. [20] investigate the
multi-port stowage planning problem through a multi-stage
hierarchical decomposition approach, in which the problem
is divided into the MP-MBPP and SPP. The mathematical
formulations and algorithms are proposed separately for the
two sub-problems.
B. BLOCK RELOCATION PROBLEM
The block relocation problem (BRP), also known as the con-
tainer relocation problem (CRP), aims at finding an optimal
retrieval sequence of the containers according to their given
priorities, with the objective of minimizing the total number
of relocations. Considering the relocatable containers, BRP
has been classified into two versions: one is the restricted
block relocation problem (R-BRP), where the relocations
only concern those containers on top of the container to
be retrieved next; Other is the unrestricted block relocation
problem (U-BRP), where the relocations may concern con-
tainers on top of any stack in yard (Feillet et al. [21]). The
BRP can also be divided by the priorities of containers:
the problem with distinct priorities and the one with dupli-
cate priorities (Zhang et al. [22]). For solving the BRP, the
existing research mainly contains three methods: the math-
ematical formulation, the exact algorithm, and the heuristic
algorithm. For a more detailed classification and research of
the BRP in the literature, the interested readers are referred to
Ku et al. [23] and Tanaka et al. [24].
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As an NP-hard problem (Caserta et al. [25]), the basic
version of BRP originates from Kim and Hong [26], in which
a branch-and-bound algorithm for exact solving and a greedy
heuristic for large-instances are developed to solve the prob-
lem. In Caserta et al. [25], two mixed integer programming
models called BRP-I and BRP-II are formulated separately.
The BRP-II follows assumption A1 corresponding to the
R-BRP and the BRP-I allows all possible relocations corre-
sponding to the U-BRP.
For solving the R-BRP, Petering et al. [27] present a new
mixed integer programming formulation called BRP-III. A
look-ahead algorithm is designed to obtain better solutions
with shorter CPU time. Expósito-Izquierdo et al. [28] correct
the BRP-II from Caserta et al. [25] and present a branch-
and-bound algorithm. Zehendner et al. [29] also present an
improved mathematical model with less variables to correct
the BRP-II from Caserta et al. [25]. Galle et al. [30] for-
mulate a binary integer programming model which could
significantly reduce the number of variables and constraints
compared to existing formulations. Based on the branch and
bound algorithm, Quispe et al. [31] implement an exact iter-
ative deepening A∗ algorithm using two new lower bounds.
Jin [32] investigates the relaxed restricted CRP and present
an integer programming formulation to correct the model in
Galle et al. [30]. Bacci et al. [33] propose a branch-and-cut
algorithm with an integer linear programming formulation.
Considering the difficulty in solving large-scale instance of
R-BRP, besides these exact methods (i.e., the mathematical
formulation and exact algorithm), many studies focus on the
heuristic algorithm to obtain high-quality solutions with short
computational time. Ku et al. [23] propose a search-space
reduction technique called the abstraction method. A search-
based algorithm for the solution procedure and the bidirec-
tional search using the abstraction method are developed.
Zehendner et al. [34] investigate the online restricted CRP,
in which the information of container departures is partly
known and the retrieval sequence of containers is revealed
over time. They introduce a leveling heuristic algorithm
based on the look-ahead horizon. In Ting et al. [35], a new
novel heuristic is embedded in a beam search algorithm.
Bacci et al. [36] develop a bounded beam search algorithm
with a new lower bound. Zhang et al. [22] design a novel
method which integrates optimization methods and machine
learning techniques. Both the exact branch-and-bound algo-
rithm and the beam search method are injected with the
machine learning-driven upper bounds to enhance the perfor-
mance for solving different scale instances. Zweers et al. [37]
present a new problem called the stochastic container reloca-
tion problem with pre-processing (SCRPPP) which is seen
as a combination of the restricted CRP and container pre-
marshalling problem. Both a heuristic method and a branch-
and-bound algorithm are proposed for the SCRPPP.
For solving the U-BRP, Tricoire et al. [38] design a
new constructive metaheuristic framework with some new
heuristic operations to quickly find high quality solutions.
Tanaka et al. [24] consider improving the efficiency of the
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 J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping
FIGURE 2. The Stowage planning and block relocation problem in inland shipping.
branch-and-bound algorithm with several dominance prop-
erties to propose an exact algorithm. Feillet et al. [21]
propose the first local search type improvement heuris-
tic. Jovanovic et al. [39] present an ant colony optimiza-
tion (ACO) algorithm for U-BRP and R-BRP with the related
greedy algorithms.
To the best of our knowledge, there is only limited work
dealing with the relationships between CSSP and BRP. Based
on the given stowage plan of container ship, Ji et al. [40]
develop a mathematical model and a genetic algorithm with
the loading sequence and rehandling strategy considering the
multi-quay crane parallel operations during loading process.
Tanaka and Voß [41] propose a branch-and-bound algorithm
with iterative deepening for solving R-BRP and U-BRP.
However, they both concern how to obtain the feasible
retrieval order of containers with respect to the given stowage
plan, and lack the consideration of making stowage planning
decisions.
In conclusion, the related works mainly focus on the CSPP
or BRP separately and usually concerns maritime container
shipping. The inland container liner shipping has its particu-
larities, and the CSSP for it contains some different problems
and objectives. Furthermore, the stowage plan of the ship in
inland shipping needs to be re-made with the actual container
information in the yard. The CSSP and BRP should be con-
sidered simultaneously to meet the practical requirements.
Thus, the existing methods for CSSP or BRP respectively
lack the consideration of their integrated optimization and
the particularity in inland shipping, which makes them cannot
be directly utilized for this specific problem. Different from
the work in Ji et al. [40] and Tanaka and Voß [41], this
paper focuses on the stowage planning problem with block
relocations which needs to determine the retrieval sequence
of containers in yard and the stowage plan of a ship simul-
taneously. This problem is referred as SPBRP, and it’s more
complex and suitable for the practical operations in inland
shipping. Our main aim is to formalize this problem with
the integer programming, and develop a heuristic algorithm.
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To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to present
this specific problem in inland shipping.
III. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
In this section, a formal description of SPBRP addressed in
this paper is presented. The SPBRP is inspired by the problem
faced by inland ports along the Yangtze River. In Figure 2,
the containers in yard are stacked into bays after arriving
the yard. Each bay contains some stacks, and each stack
contains several tiers with a limited height. Similarly, the ship
is divided into several sections called bays. Within each bay,
there are several stacks for stowing containers. Each stack
has several tiers and each tier contains one slot, with each
slot representing a 1 TEU (Twenty-Foot Container Equivalent
Unit) holding capacity.
For the containers in yard, as shown in Figure 2, they are
retrieved one by one based on their retrieval sequences during
the loading process. If the current container is on the top of
its stack in yard, it can be retrieved directly to load aboard.
Otherwise, it can only be retrieved after the containers upon
it being relocated. Therefore, SPBRP contains two types of
operations: a retrieval operation and a relocation operation.
Specifically, the relocation operation corresponds to a R-BRP,
and the retrieval operation corresponds to a CSSP. All the
retrieval and relocation operations could only be achieved
on the top of stack either in yard or in ship. The relocation
operation is permitted only within the given bays in yard,
in which those containers to be loaded aboard are stowed.
This article explores SPBRP in inland container shipping
along the Yangtze River. This problem concerns assigning
containers in yard into the stacks of ship at current port. The
constraints of BRP in yard and ship’s constraints of stability,
strength, and capacity in CSSP must be fulfilled. Considering
the operation efficiency in container shipping, the objective
aims to minimize the total number of relocations in yard
and re-handles in ship. The solution concerns the containers’
retrieval sequences in yard and loading slots in ship. Also,
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J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping

if some containers need to be relocated in yard, its relocation hmax : The largest stowing tier of yard stack, hmax ∈ H .
stack should be defined. (s, h) : The yard slot (s, h) at stack s and tier h, s ∈ S,
Due to the surplus transport capacity in shipping market h ∈ H.
and relatively limited capacity of ship size, the CSSP in (j, i) : The ship slot (j, i) at stack j and tier i, j ∈ J , i ∈ I .
inland shipping emphasizes the higher ship capacity utiliza- SWj : Maximum load weight of ship stack j (Unit: ton),
tion. Thus, the objective of minimizing the number of occu- j ∈ J.
pied stacks in ship is introduced into SPBRP. Keeping the STj : Maximum stacking tiers (or capacity limit) of ship
containers at current port clustered and using as few stacks stack j (Unit: TEU), j ∈ J .
as possible can help increase the ship capacity utilization and 1LG : Maximum longitudinal weight tolerance of ship
decrease re-handles at future ports in liner shipping. More- (Unit: ton).
over, the objective of minimizing re-handles in ship could 1CG : Maximum horizontal weight tolerance of ship
be modified by the constraint of avoiding re-handles, which (Unit: ton).
means the container with further destination port cannot stow 0-1 Binary Variables:
on another one in the same stack of ship. More detailed αksht : αksht = 1, if container k is stowed in yard slot (s, h)
descriptions can be found in Section 4.2. at stage t; otherwise αksht = 0. ∀k ∈ K , s ∈ S, h ∈ H , t ∈ T .
xksht : xksht = 1, if container k is retrieved from yard slot
IV. MATHEMATICAL MODELS (s, h) at stage t; otherwise xksht = 0. ∀k ∈ K , s ∈ S, h ∈ H ,
The integer programming formulation for SPBRP is con- t ∈ T.
structed based on following assumptions: yksht : yksht = 1, if container k is relocated into yard slot
(a) The process of planning is divided into different stages. (s, h) at stage t; otherwise yksht = 0. ∀k ∈ K , s ∈ S, h ∈ H ,
Each stage contains either a retrieval operation or a relocation t ∈ T.
operation. At the last stage, all the containers can be loaded zkjit : zkjit = 1, if container k is loaded aboard into ship
aboard. slot (j, i) at stage t; otherwise zkjit = 0. ∀k ∈ K , j ∈ J , i ∈ I ,
(b) Only the standard 20-ft containers are considered. t ∈ T.
(c) Each container in yard can be relocated at most once βji : βji = 1, if the container in ship slot (j, i) needs
for retrieving the target container. re-handle after all the containers have been loaded aboard;
(d) The stack is considered as the storage unit instead of otherwise βji = 0. ∀j ∈ J , i ∈ I .
bay both in yard and ship.
2) OBJECTIVE FUNCTION
A. SPBRP-I The mathematical model SPBRP-I based on 0-1 integer pro-
A typical inland container ship in the Yangtze River is shown gramming can be defined as follows. In this model, the stud-
in Figure 3 (Li et al. [1]). For the mathematical model con- ied objective includes the total number of relocations in yard
struction, the stacks in ship are numbered one by one from and re-handles in ship.
front to back, and from left to right. In Figure 3, the stacks XXXX XX
are divided into different sets namely front half, back half, min f = yksht + βji (1)
left half, and right half. t∈T k∈K s∈S h∈H j∈J i∈I
XX XX XX
xksht = yksht + zkjit ,
1) NOTATIONS
s∈S h∈H s∈S h∈H j∈J i∈I
Sets:
∀k ∈ K , t∈T (2)
T : Set of stages in the planning process. XXX
K : Set of containers. xksht ≤ 1, ∀t ∈ T (3)
D : Set of container destination ports. k∈K s∈S h∈H
XXX
S : Set of yard stacks. yksht ≤ 1, ∀t ∈ T (4)
H : Set of tiers for the yard stack. k∈K s∈S h∈H
XXX
J : Set of ship stacks, J = JF ∪ JA = JL ∪ JR . zkjit ≤ 1, ∀t ∈ T (5)
JF : Subset of ship stacks in front half of ship. k∈K j∈J i∈I
JA : Subset of ship stacks in back half of ship. XXX XXX
JL : Subset of ship stacks in left half of ship. xksh(t+1) ≤ xksht ,
k∈K s∈S h∈H k∈K s∈S h∈H
JR : Subset of ship stacks in right half of ship.
∀t ∈ T \{tmax } (6)
I : Set of tiers for the ship stack. X X
Parameters: αksht + yksht ≤ 1, ∀s ∈ S, h ∈ H , t ∈ T
t : The stage t, t ∈ T . k∈K k∈K
tmax : The last stage, T = {1, 2, . . . , tmax }. X X X X
(7)
k : The container k, k ∈ K . αks(h+1)t + xksht + yks(h+1)t ≤ αksht ,
wk : The weight of container k (Unit: ton), k ∈ K . k∈K k∈K k∈K k∈K
dk : The destination port of container k, dk ∈ D, k ∈ K . ∀s ∈ S, h ∈ H \{hmax }, t ∈ T (8)

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 J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping

FIGURE 3. The structure of a typical inland container ship.

X X X X  
αksht + αks(h+1)t + xksht + yksht
 
X X X X XXXX 
k∈K k∈K k∈K k∈K

 wk zkjit − wk zkjit 
X k∈K j∈JL i∈I t∈T k∈K j∈JR i∈I t∈T 
+ yks(h+1)t ≤ 2,
≤ 1CG (21)
k∈K
∀s ∈ S, h ∈ H \{hmax }, t ∈ T (9) αksht , xksht , yksht ∈ {0, 1}, ∀k ∈ K , s ∈ S,
h ∈ H,
XX XX
yksht + xksh(t+1) ≤ 1, t∈T (22)
k∈K h∈H k∈K h∈H zkjit ∈ {0, 1}, ∀k ∈ K , j ∈ J , i ∈ I , t ∈ T (23)
∀s ∈ S, t ∈ T \{tmax } (10) βji ∈ {0, 1}, ∀j ∈ J , i ∈ I (24)
XX XX
xksht + yksh(t+1) ≤ 1,
k∈K h∈H k∈K h∈H In SPBRP-I, the objective function (1) minimizes total
∀s ∈ S, t ∈ T \{tmax } (11) number of relocations in yard and re-handles in ship. Con-
X straint (2) shows that the container can be either relocated
αkshtmax = 0, ∀s ∈ S, h ∈ H (12)
or loaded aboard after being retrieved at any stage. Con-
k∈K
XXX straint (3) restricts that at most one container can be retrieved
zkjit = 1, ∀k ∈ K (13) in yard at any stage. Constraints (4) and (5) represent at most
j∈J i∈I t∈T one container can be relocated or loaded aboard at any stage.
XX
zkjit ≤ 1, ∀j ∈ J , i ∈ I (14) Constraint (6) restricts all the retrieval operations should be
k∈K t∈T arranged without idle. Constraint (7) defines any yard slot
X 1 −1
X tX can at most stow one container at any stage. Constraint (8)
zkjit1 ≤ zkj(i−1)t , specifies that the container above the bottom tier is stowed on
k∈K k∈K t=1 another one in the yard stack, and the retrieval or relocation
∀j ∈ J , i ∈ I \{1}, t1 ∈ T \{1} (15) operation can only P be handled on Pthe top of yard stack.
Specifically, if α = 0, k∈K αks(h+1)t = 0 and
XXX
wk zkjit ≤ SWj , ∀j ∈ J (16) P k∈K ksht
k∈K i∈I t∈T
y
Pk∈K ks(h+1)t = 0 mean no container hanging
P in the air; if
α α
P
XXX
k∈K ksht = 1 and k∈K ks(h+1)t = 1, k∈K xksht = 0
zkjit ≤ STj , ∀j ∈ J (17)
means the container in yard slot (s, h) cannot be retrieved
k∈K i∈I t∈T P
XX and y
k∈K ks(h+1)t = 0 means the yard slot (s, h + 1)
βji ≤ zkjit , ∀j ∈ J , i ∈ I
P k∈K αksht = 1
(18)
P
cannot be relocated with any container; if
and k∈K αks(h+1)t = 0, k∈K xksht + k∈K yks(h+1)t ≤
P P
k∈K t∈T
P P P P
dk zkjit − dk zkj(i−1)t 1 means the container in yard slot (s, h) can be retrieved
k∈K t∈T k∈K t∈T
βji ≥ , or the yard slot (s, h + 1) can be relocated with anther
kDk container. Similarly, constraint (9) specifies that when the
∀j ∈ J , i ∈ I \{1} (19) upper and lower adjacent yard slots have been occupied,
 
both slots (s, h) and (s, h + 1) cannot be relocated with any
 
X X X X XXXX 

 w z
k kjit − w z
k kjit 

container and the container in lower slot (s, h) cannot be
k∈K j∈JF i∈I t∈T k∈K j∈JA i∈I t∈T retrieved. Constraints (10) and (11) avoid the unless oper-

≤ 1LG (20) ations that one container cannot be retrieved and relocated

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XX XX
within the same yard stack during two adjacent stages. dk zkjit ≤ dk zkj(i−1)t ,
Constraint (12) ensures all the container in yard can be loaded k∈K t∈T k∈K t∈T
aboard at the last stage. Constraint (13) represents each con- ∀j ∈ J , i ∈ I \{1} (29)
tainer in yard can be loaded into the ship. Constraint (14) γj ∈ {0, 1}, ∀j ∈ J (30)
shows each ship slot can at most stow one container. Con-
straint (15) ensures the container above the bottom tier needs In this mathematical model, f1 denotes the number of relo-
to be stowed on another container in any ship stack. Con- cations in yard, and f2 denotes the number of occupied stacks
straints (16) and (17) represent the capacity and load weight in ship. Constraint (28) defines the relationship between γj
constraints of each ship stack. Constraints (18) and (19) and zkjit . IfPthere are
P containers being stowed in ship stack j at
> 0 and γj = 1; otherwise
P
last stage, z
define
P the Prelationships between zP kjit andPβji . Specifically, k∈K i∈I t∈T kjit
γ
P P P
if 0, β 0; if z = 0 and =0. Constraint (29) ensures
z = = t∈T zkjit = 1 and
kjit ji k∈K i∈I t∈T kjit j
k∈K t∈T k∈K
P P P P
≤ 0, the objec- the container with further destination port cannot be stowed
k∈K t∈T dk zkjit − k∈K t∈T dk zkj(i−1)t
tive P
function (1) will force β 0; if
P P on top of the one with nearer destination port. Constraint (30)
ji = k∈K t∈T zkjit = 1
and k∈K t∈T dk zkjit − k∈K t∈T dk zkj(i−1)t > 0, βji =
P P P defines the value of variable.
1. The ||D|| in constraint (19) shows the number of elements Constraint (29) can ensure the solution of SPBRP-II with
in the set D which means the total number of container no re-handles, then the variable βji could be removed together
destination ports. The longitudinal and horizontal weight with constraints (18) and (19). Based on SPBRP-I and nota-
tolerances of ship are enforced by constraints (20) and (21) tions above, SPBRP is formulated as a new model SPBRP-II:
F = min(f1 , f2 ) : (26) ∼ (27), (2) ∼ (17),
 
for the ship stability (Ambrosino et al. [8]). Constraints (22)
to (24) define the values of variables. (SPBRP-II) .
(28) ∼ (29), (20) ∼ (24), (30)

B. SPBRP-II V. MODEL SOLVING METHOD

SPBRP-I lacks the consideration of keeping containers clus-
tered in ship for the high capacity utilization. When the
number of containers to be loaded is small, the containers may
be stowed dispersedly and occupy extra stacks in ship. This
will bring negative effects on the loading/unloading process
and stowage planning at subsequent ports in liner shipping.
As mentioned in Section 3, the objective of minimizing the
number of occupied stacks in ship is considered into SPBRP.
Based on SPBRP-I, this objective is added into the objective
function to propose a new model SPBRP-II. It can achieve the
efficient capacity utilization of the occupied stack and reserve
empty stacks as much as possible for the stowage planning at
subsequent ports.
1) NOTATIONS
L : A large positive integer, suppose that L = 1000.
γj : 0-1 binary variable. γj = 1, if there are containers being
stowed in ship stack j at last stage; otherwise γj = 0. ∀j ∈ J .
2) OBJECTIVE FUNCTIONS
The number of occupied stacks in ship is added into the
objective function, and the minimization of re-handles in ship
is modified by the constraint of avoiding re-handles. A new
mathematical model SPBRP-II can be defined as follows.
min F = (f1 , f2 )
XXXX
f1 = yksht
t∈T k∈K s∈S h∈H
X relocation operation. Thus, the value of last stage tmax equals
f2 = γj
j∈J
XXX
γj ≤ zkjit ≤ L · γj , ∀j ∈ J
k∈K i∈I t∈T
For solving SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II, the value of last stage
tmax should be defined in advance. The value of tmax is
directly related to the number of variables and constraints
which can affect the solving effectiveness of proposed mod-
els. If tmax is set too small, some containers cannot be loaded
aboard. Thus, the models will not be solved as constraints (12)
and (13) cannot be satisfied. If tmax is set too large, it may
bring some unless calculations for solving the models.
A solution method which updates the value of tmax
iteratively is adopted to solve the models (Parreño-Torres
et al. [42]). Specifically, the value of tmax is first set as its
lower bound tlb , i.e., tmax = tlb . If the model can be solved
correctly, the iterative optimization procedure ends and the
current solution is outputted. If the model cannot be solved,
the value of tmax is updated as tmax = tmax + 1 and the
iterative optimization procedure continues. The procedure
repeats until the model can be solved with a solution or
the tmax has reached its upper bound. Method 1 describes
the iterative optimization procedure for solving the proposed
models. In this method, the last stage tmax is the main con-
trolling parameter, it will be tuned step-by-step from its lower
bound to upper bound.
Lemma 1: Let N be the number of containers to be loaded
in yard. Then, the value of lower bound tlb equals to N ,
i.e., tlb = N .
Proof: f1 is defined as the number of relocations in
(25) yard in equation (26). Based on the assumption (a) and (c),
all the containers in yard can be loaded aboard at the last
(26)
stage, and each stage contains either a retrieval operation or a
(27) to the total number of retrieval operations and relocation
operations. The retrieval operations correspond to load all
(28) the containers in yard aboard, which means each container
contains one retrieval operation. Therefore, the number of

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 J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping
Model 1 Solving Method for SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II
Require: SPBRP-I, A mathematical model for SPBRP
SPBRP-II, A new mathematical model for SPBRP
tmax , The last stage
tlb , Lower bound of the last stage tmax
tub , Upper bound of the last stage tmax
Container information in yard at current port
Ship information at current port
A mathematical programming solver Gurobi
Ensure: X : Solutin, F: Objective function value of solu-
tion
1: Initial set tmax = tlb
2: {X , F}←Solving SPBRP-I or SPBRP-II by using
Gorubi
3: while SPBRP-I or SPBRP-II cannot be solved and
tmax <= tub do
4: tmax ← tmax + 1
5: {X , F}←Solving SPBRP-I or SPBRP-II by using
Gorubi
6: if SPBRP-I or SPBRP-II can be solved then
7: {X , F}←Solving SPBRP-I or SPBRP-II
8: end while
9: end if
10: end while
11: return {X , F}
retrieval operations equals to the number P
of containers.
P P P Then,
we have tmax = f1 + N , where f1 = yksht .
t∈T k∈K s∈S h∈H
Considering yksht is an 0-1 binary variable and yksht ≥ 0(∀k ∈
K , s ∈ S, h ∈ H , t ∈ T ), f1 ≥ 0. Under the best situation, the
relocation operations can be avoided in yard, and the value of
f1 equals to its theoretical lower bound, i.e., f1 = 0. Therefore,
tmax = f1 + N ≥ N and tlb = N .
For the model solving, the upper bound of f1 can be simply
set as the number of containers minus the one on top of stacks
in yard based on assumption (c). The number of containers on
top of stacks in yard is denoted as M , then upper bound of f1
equals to N − M . Therefore, tmax = f1 + N ≤ N − M + N
and tub = 2N − M .
VI. HEURISTIC ALGORITHM
The existing algorithms are mostly developed for solving the
CSPP or BRP separately and mainly concerns maritime con-
tainer shipping. They cannot be directly utilized to properly
optimize the SPBRP in inland shipping. For solving the CSPP
or BRP, the solving methods focus on the design of heuris-
tic algorithms considering their NP-hardness. The effective
heuristic algorithm can achieve the high-quality solutions
within very short time.
Due to the particularities of inland container shipping,
the CSSP for it contains some different problems and objec-
tives. Thus, a heuristic algorithm (HA) is proposed based
on the previous study in Li et al. [1] and some reloca-
tion strategies in BRP, which contains some priority sorting,
207506
retrieval and local search strategies. HA consists of three parts
including the yard container retrieving, yard container relo-
cation and ship stowage planning. Firstly, the yard container
retrieving defines the containers’ retrieval sequences and the
target container at current stage. Then, for the container needs
to be relocated, the yard container relocation determines its
relocation stack in yard. Finally, for the container that is
retrieved to load aboard, the ship stowage planning defines
its stacking slot in ship.
A. YARD CONTAINER RETRIEVING
For the yard container retrieving, the current container to be
retrieved namely the target container should be determined.
The containers’ retrieval sequences are defined by the priority
sorting rules. The container with a higher priority could be
retrieved earlier. Based the practical operation rules and the
preference of avoiding re-handles in ship, the yard container
retrieving is defined based on priority sorting rules below.
(a) The container with further destination port has a higher
priority.
(b) For the containers with same destination ports, the one
which will cause no relocations or smaller number of reloca-
tions has a higher priority.
(c) If there are more than one container without causing
relocations, the one which stowing closer to the previous
operation stack in yard has a higher priority.
(d) If there are more than one container with smallest
number of relocations, the one which has the container with
furthest destination port stowed above gets a higher priority.
Following the rules above, if there are containers stowing
upon the target container at current stage, the target container
will be updated as the one stowing on the top of same stack
in yard. In this situation, the target container could be either
relocated in yard or loaded aboard corresponding to two
different retrieval strategies.
Retrieval strategy 1 (RS1): the target container is retrieved
to load aboard for avoiding the relocation in yard, which
means the procedure of algorithm goes to the ship stowage
planning and continues.
Retrieval strategy 2 (RS2): the target container is relocated
to anther stack in yard, which means the procedure of algo-
rithm goes to the yard container relocation and continues.
B. YARD CONTAINER RELOCATION
For the yard container relocation, the relocation stack for
target container is determined preferentially without causing
new relocations in yard. The number of containers, which
have higher priorities than the target container in stack s,
is denoted by ms , ∀s ∈ S. The rules of yard container
relocation for choosing the best relocation stack are presented
as follows:
(a) The empty stack is chosen first. If there are more than
one empty stack, the one closer to the previous operation
stack in yard should be chosen.
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J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping

(b) If there are no empty stacks, the stack with ms = 0 is

chosen. Similarly, if there are more than one stack, the one
closer to the previous operation stack is chosen first.
(c) If there are no stacks with ms = 0, the one with the
smallest value of ms is chosen first. Similarly, if there are
more than one stack, the one closer to the previous operation
stack would be chosen.

C. SHIP STOWAGE PLANNING FIGURE 5. Swapping all the containers in two different stacks in ship.
For the ship stowage planning, the constraints of ship stabil-
ity, strength, and capacity should be fulfilled to define the
stowing slots for containers in ship. The ship stowage plan-
ning is achieved by the following stowage rule considering
minimizing the number of occupied stacks in ship. When the
target container is retrieved to load aboard, the stacks in ship
are examined in an ascending order to choose the first one
satisfying the following conditions.
(a) The stack has at least one empty slot;
(b) The load weight constraint of stack could still be
ensured with the target container;
(c) If the stack is not empty, the target container should
have the nearest destination port comparing to these already
in this stack, or the same destination port with the nearest one;
(d) If the condition (c) cannot be satisfied, the first empty
stack in ship is chosen. If there are no empty stacks, the one
first satisfying both conditions (a) and (b) would be chosen.
In some cases, the stowage plan from the rule may not
fulfill the stability constraints of the ship. Two different local
search strategies for modifying the longitudinal and horizon-
tal weight tolerances of ship are presented, i.e., LS1 and LS2
(Li et al. [1]). In LS1, all the containers in one stack are
moved into another empty one in ship in Figure 4. In LS2,
all the containers in two different stacks are swapped in ship
in Figure 5.

FIGURE 6. The flowchart of proposed HA.

The pseudo code of HA is shown in detail in Algorithm 1.

FIGURE 4. Moving all the containers in the stack to another empty one in
ship.
Both LS1 and LS2 cannot change the stowing states
of containers in one stack, and the stacks are replaceable
to each other in view of the ship’s rectangular structure
(See Figure.3). Thus, the containers’ retrieval sequences in
yard will not be influenced by the strategies. If the stowage
plan cannot fulfill the ship’s stability constraints, LS1 and
LS2 are implemented one by one until the ship’s stability is
within its limit. Otherwise, each strategy is implemented until
the ship’s stability cannot be further improved. The flowchart
of proposed HA is shown in Figure 6.
The three parts of HA are implemented one by one. The
yard container retrieving ends until the containers’ retrieval
sequences have been defined. For the current target container,
the yard container relocation ends until its best relocation
yard stack has been determined. The ship stowage planning
ends until the best stowing slot for the container in ship has
been found. After all the containers have been loaded aboard,
the ship’s stability will be checked. Otherwise, the two local
search strategies are implemented one by one until the ship’s
stability has been modified within its limit or it cannot be
further improved.
VII. COMPUTATIONAL EXPERIMENTS
A. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Considering the inland container shipping along the Yangtze
River, three typical inland container ships are listed for the

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Algorithm 1 HA for SPBRP TABLE 1. Information of container ships on the Yangtze River.
Require: Container information in yard at current port
Ship information at current port
K , Set of containers to be loaded in yard
||S||, Number of yard stacks
||J ||, Number of ship stacks
k, The container k, k ∈ K
dk , The destination port of container k, k ∈ K
qk , The retrieval sequences of containers in yard containers in yard are considered in Table 2. The instances
rk , The relocation plan of container k, k ∈ K are denoted as S1_1, S1_2 and so on. In table 2, S1_1 to
pk , The stowage plan of container k, k ∈ K S1_4 show the four instances including S1_1, S1_2, S1_3,
RS1, Retrieval strategy 1 and S1_4; and {3,4,5,6} shows the number of destination
RS2, Retrieval strategy 2 ports corresponding to these four instances successively.
Ensure: X1 : Solution, F1 : Objective function value of X1
1: for all k ∈ K B. COMPUTATIONAL RESULTS
2: qk ← Yard container retrieving (dk ) The proposed SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II are solved by using
3: end Gurobi with Method 1. Following this model solving
4: for all k ∈ K method, the CPU time limit is first set at 600 s under each
5: Update the container k with smallest qk as the tmax . If the model cannot be optimally solved, it is extended
target container to 3600 s and the first feasible solution is output.
6: if the target container is stowing on the top of yard stack For the two objectives in SPBRP-II, the hierarchical
7: pk ← Ship stowage planning (dk , ||J ||) approach is utilized in Gurobi. It assigns a priority to each
8: end if objective and optimizes for the objectives in a decreasing
9: if the target container isn’t stowing on the top of priority order. The priorities of f1 and f2 are set as 1 and
yard stack 0 separately. At each step, the approach finds the best solution
10: Update the container k stowing on the top of same for the current objective, but only from among those that
stack as the target container would not degrade the solution quality for higher-priority
11: if the strategy RS1 is chosen objectives (https://www.gurobi.com/documentation/ 8.1/ref-
12: rk ← Yard container relocation (dk , ||S||) man/ working_with_multiple_obje.html).
13: end if The algorithms with two different retrieval strategies (i.e.,
14: if the strategy RS2 is chosen RS1 and RS2) are denoted as HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 respec-
15: pk ← Ship stowage planning (dk , ||J ||) tively. The only difference between HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 is
16: end if the retrieval strategy and all the other setting of them keeps the
17: end if same. They are programmed in Python 3.6. All computational
18: end experiments are run on an Intel Core I7-5500U 2.40 GHz
19: for all k ∈ K processor with 4 GB of RAM. The effectiveness of proposed
20: Solution X1 ← {qk , rk , pk } models and algorithms is validated by a considerable of com-
21: end putational experiments. Based on the test instances in Table 2,
22: if the ship’s stability is not within its limit the solution quality, solving quantity, and computational time
23: repeat are concerned for the comparison of different methods.
24: {X1 , F1 }←Update {X1 , F1 } with RS1 and RS2 In view of the management in container terminal, how
25: until X1 cannot be improved to reduce the berthing time of ships is very important for
26: end if improving its operational efficiency. An effective way of
27: return {X1 , F1 } speeding up the loading/unloading operations of ships at the
container terminal is to use the idle time before the arrival of
a ship for sorting the containers in yard in advance. Thus,
experiments according to the Chinese national standard GB/T two different scenarios are concerned for the comparison
19283-2010. In Table 1, the detailed information of each ship of algorithms by considering whether the pre-marshalling
is listed corresponding to the notations in the mathematical operations have been implemented in advance.
models.
For the containers to be loaded in yard, 4 different number 1) SCENARIO 1
of destination ports are set. Considering the general opera- Under this scenario, all the containers are stowed in yard fol-
tional height limitation of the common yard crane, the max- lowing PSCW rule in advance, i.e., the containers were clus-
imum stacking tier in yard is set as 4 to 5. Here, a series tered into different stacks considering their characteristics of
of test instances based on these ships are designed as listed destination port (P), size (S), category (C), and weight (W).
in Table 2. For each type of ship, 3 different layouts of For different types of ships, the results of different models

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TABLE 2. Experimental instances of ships on the Yangtze River.

TABLE 3. Results of different models and algorithms for ship S1 under scenario 1.

TABLE 4. Results of different models and algorithms for ship S2 under scenario 1.

and algorithms are shown in Tables 3-5. In Tables 3-5, f1 of re-handles in ship; T0 represents the CPU time (unit: s); and
represents the number of relocations in yard; f2 represents the the ‘‘-’’ represents that a model could not be solved within the
number of occupied stacks in ship; f3 represents the number time limit.

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 J. Li et al.: Optimizing the Stowage Planning and Block Relocation Problem in Inland Container Shipping
TABLE 5. Results of different models and algorithms for ship S3 under scenario 1.
In Tables 3-5, due to the PSCW rule in yard, the con-
tainers could be retrieved to loaded aboard without any
relocations. For the models, SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II found
the best solutions without relocations in yard by setting
tmax = tlb when they were solved within the time limit.
The solution of SPBRP-II always had a bigger number of
occupied stacks (i.e., f2 ) than the solution of SPBRP-I. For
the number of relocations in yard (i.e., f1 ) and the num-
ber of re-handles in ship (i.e., f3 ), SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II
always found the best results when they could be solved
within the time limit of 600 s. SPBRP-II always took more
CPU tome since it considered no re-handles into constraints.
In Tables 4 and 5, SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II could not guar-
antee a feasible solution within 3600 s for some instances
with the rapid growing number of variables and constraints.
Overall, although SPBRP-II may spend more computational
time than SPBRP-I, it always found a better solution.
In Tables 3-5, the results of HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 were
same while the CPU time for some instances may be little dif-
ferent. Comparing with SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II, HA mainly
contains some rules and strategies. Thus, HA_RS1 and
HA_RS2 took much less CPU time than the proposed mod-
els, and they could solve all instances within an average
time of 0.16 s. For the objectives of SPBRP, HA_RS1 and
HA_RS2 performed better than SPBRP-I and had very small
differences with SPBRP-II. Overall, although SPBRP-II
could find a better number of occupied stacks in ship than
the algorithms, the differences were quite small and the algo-
rithms significantly reduced the computational time.
Obviously, the lower bound of f1 and f3 are both 0 when
considering them separately. The lower bound of f2 could be
obtained through the following definition:
n lX mo
f2 min = max dN /H e , wk /SW (31)
k∈K
where f2 min is the lower bound of f2 ; N represents the total
number of containers to be loaded; H is the number of tiers
for the stack of each ship as listed in Column 4 of Table 1;
207510
P
k∈K wk means the total weight of containers to be loaded
in yard; SW is the maximum load weight of the stack in
ship as listed in Column 6 of Table 1; and d e rounds up the
value inside. The f2 min can be used as the lower bound of f2
because it only concerns the capacity constraint of each stack
in ship and ignores the re-handles and stability constraints of
the ship.
HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 could always find the lower bounds
of f1 and f3 in Tables 3-5. In order to further verify
the effectiveness of the algorithms, the results of f2 from
HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 were compared with its lower bound
f2 min in Table 6. In the table, gap represents the gap in
units of f2 compared with f2 min from HA_RS1 and HA_RS2
(unit: %). In Table 6, the results of f2 from HA_RS1 and
HA_RS2 were very close to its lower bound. For all the
instances, the average results of HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 had
a small gap with the value of lower bound.
To make the results statistically more convincing, the
Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA method with the significance level
of 0.05 is utilized to analyze the difference of the models and
algorithms. Firstly, as the models SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II
cannot find feasible solutions for some instances (e.g., ship
S3), only the instances which can be solved by all the models
and algorithms simultaneously are used for the statistical
tests. Secondly, the lower bounds of f1 and f3 are both 0,
and the results of them from different methods are mostly
0. Thus, the test method is mainly applied for f2 to analyze
the difference of the models and algorithms as shown in
Figure 7. It is obvious that there are significant differences
from the perspective of f2 among the models and algorithms
since the p-values is less than 0.05. For those test instances,
the SPBRP-II, HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 achieve better results
of f2 than the SPBRP-I, which is consistent with the result
analysis from Tables 3-5.
In general, when the containers in yard following PSCW
rule, SPBRP-II could be utilized to optimize SPBRP for
small ship S1. For the bigger ships S2 and S3, HA_RS1 and
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TABLE 6. Results of f2 from HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 comparing with f2 min under scenario 1.
FIGURE 7. Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA significance test results of f2 for the
models and algorithms under scenario 1.
HA_RS2 have better performances and always obtain good
solutions efficiently.
2) SCENARIO 2
Under this scenario, all the containers to be loaded aboard
in yard don’t follow the PSCW rule, i.e., the containers
are stowed into stacks in yard according to their arriving
sequences without any pre-marshalling operations. For dif-
ferent ships, the results of different models and algorithms
are shown in Tables 7-9. The definitions in Tables 7-9 have
the same meanings with the ones in Tables 3-5.
In Tables 7-9, the results from HA_RS1 show that all
the instances can be optimized with no relocations in yard,
which means the setting of tmax = tlb should be suitable for
solving the mathematical models. Although the containers
in yard didn’t follow PSCW rule, SPBRP-I and SPBRP-II
found solutions without relocations in yard. Like the results
under Scenario 1, SPBRP-II performed better than SPBRP-I
for optimizing the number of occupied stacks and re-handles
in ship (i.e., f2 and f3 ).
For HA_RS1 and HA_RS2, the results from them were dif-
ferent owing to the different retrieval strategies, especially for
VOLUME 8, 2020
the number of relocations in yard (i.e., f1 ). HA_RS1 always
found a better solution for optimizing f1 . Due to the extra
relocations in HA_RS2, its results of f2 and f3 slightly out-
performed the ones from HA_RS1(e.g., S1_2, S1_4, S2_6,
S3_5, S3_7). In general, HA_RS1 and HA_RS2 took much
less CPU time than the proposed models and the differ-
ences between algorithms were quite small. For the objec-
tive optimizations, HA_RS1 performed more balanced than
HA_RS2. HA_RS1 could effectively optimize the different
objectives at the same time. Comparing with SPBRP-I and
SPBRP-II, the algorithms had great advantages in compu-
tational time and solving quantity. For the small ship S1,
SPBRP-II performed better than the algorithms, but the dif-
ferences between it and HA_RS1 were very little. For the
ship S2 and S3, HA_RS1 had a much better performance than
SPBRP-II.
In Tables 7-9, HA_RS1 could always find the lower bounds
of f1 . For the ship S1 and S2, HA_RS1 found the lower
bounds of f3 . For the ship S3, only few results (e.g., S3_7,
S3_10, and S3_12) from HA_RS1 had quite small differences
with the lower bounds. Like the results in Table 6, the result
of f2 from HA_RS1 was compared with its lower bound f2 min
in Table 10. The results of f2 from HA_RS1 were very close
to its lower bound. An average result from HA_RS1 had a
reasonable gap with the value of lower bound.
Like the test result in Figure 7, the same Kruskal-Wallis
ANOVA method is utilized under scenario 2. Figure 8
presents the test result of f2 for the models and algorithms.
There are significant differences among the models and
algorithms since the p-values is less than 0.05. For those
test instances, the performances of SPBRP-II, HA_RS1 and
HA_RS2 are better than the SPBRP-I, which is consistent
with the previous result analysis.
In conclusion, for the computational experiments under
two typical scenarios, SPBRP-I, SPBRP-II and HA_RS1 can
find the solutions without relocations in yard. For the con-
sideration of high ship capacity utilization, SPBRP-I has
the worst results. With the increasing of ship size, SPBRP-I
and SPBRP-II cannot guarantee a solution within the time
limit. Especially for the ship S3, the models cannot find
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TABLE 7. Results of different models and algorithms for ship S1 under scenario 2.

TABLE 8. Results of different models and algorithms for ship S2 under scenario 2.

TABLE 9. Results of different models and algorithms for ship S3 under scenario 2.

a feasible solution for each instance. HA_RS1 outperforms relocations in yard. Thus, SPBRP-II can be utilized for small
the models and HA_RS2 since it always achieves a good ship like S1; HA_RS1 can effectively optimize SPBRP for all
solution for all objectives of SPBRP efficiently with no ships.

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TABLE 10. Results of f2 from HA_RS1 comparing with f2 min under
scenario 2.
FIGURE 8. Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA significance test results of f2 for the
models and algorithms under scenario 2.
VIII. CONCLUSION
Considering the practical operations in inland container ship-
ping, this article investigates a new problem called SPBRP.
The optimization methods including mathematical modeling
and heuristic algorithm are proposed. Following the prob-
lem description of SPBRP, the corresponding mathematical
model SPBRP-I is formulated to minimize the total num-
ber of relocations in yard and re-handles in ship. For the
high ship capacity utilization, SPBRP-I is then modified
into a new model SPBRP-II. In view of the problem com-
plexity, the heuristic algorithm contains different retrieval
strategies is proposed. The computational results revealed
that SPBRP-II performs better than SPBRP-I; HA_RS1 out-
performs HA_RS2 especially when the containers in yard
don’t follow PSCW rule. Considering the optimization effi-
ciency, SPBRP-II is more suitable to find exact solutions
for small-sized cases, and HA_RS1 can effectively find high
quality solutions for SPBRP.
In future research, we will expand SPBRP to a multi-port
problem during the inland container liner shipping with some
larger ships. The ship’s whole route should be investigated to
make the plans for multiple ports. Thus, the containers which
have been already loaded aboard in previous ports should
VOLUME 8, 2020
be considered into the problem at each port. The container
ship stowage planning will be linked to the actual stability
formulas like the shear force, bending moment, trim and so
on, which is closer to the reality operation. Furthermore,
some larger ships which can sail through the lower reaches
of the Yangtze River to the sea terminals will be consid-
ered for further verifying the proposed methods, especially
for the algorithm. Some machine learning techniques will
be inserted into the algorithm, such as clustering analysis
(CA), opposition-based learning (OBL), and reinforcement
learning.
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