New results Dinalog project Ultimate for inland container transport

In September Stefano Fazi presented his PhD thesis ‘Mode selection routing and scheduling for inland container transport’. He investigated the main operations and challenges when scheduling containers for transportation in the hinterland. He made amongst other things a prototype, a decision support system tool, for the optimal allocation of containers to barges and trucks, and different models to analyze and optimize current Demurrage & Detention procedures.  

In recent years containerized transport has increased considerably. This growing flow of containers between sea ports and the hinterland generates several issues related to road traffic, shortage of handling capacity and storage spaces, congestion and pollution. The use of barges and trains together with a rearrangement of the system can reduce those negative effects.  As inland terminals provide more and more logistics services, the use of barges and trains is further encouraged, favoring the movement of large bundles. However the truck is still the preferred modality for various reasons. Trucks are flexible, easy to schedule and quick, but expensive. Therefore, the consolidation of containers with different features and their allocation to barges and trains is an operational challenge. Besides, other constraints in the system, like demurrage and detention, favor the easy way out: order a truck.

Stefano Fazi developed mathematical models and algorithms in order to generate relevant insights and to help the construction of decision support systems for inland terminals.

Prototype Decision support system.

He worked at the inland Terminal Veghel, member of Brabant Intermodal and part of the Dinalog R&D project Ultimate and he made use of real and actual data.

At the terminal, planning and deciding to ship by barge or truck is currently done by hand (with the help of excel files). One schedule of 40 to 50 containers can take two hours. Fazi designed an algorithm that takes into account the same constraints and features considered by the planners: the size of the containers and their availability, the due date of delivery, the capacity of the available barges, transportation times.  The algorithm takes just few seconds to make a schedule. From preliminary experiments, estimated cost savings are about € 1000 per schedule, resulting from a better use of barges and a reduction in the number of used trucks.

The next step is to implement this prototype. An interface is needed as well as an application. Fazi is working on this next step at Groningen University and looking for logistics service providers who want to participate in this project.

D&D: Demurrage and Detainment

The current D&D systems offer no real incentives to the owners of containers to pick them up as soon as possible from sea terminal premises. As a certain amount of free days is granted by the shipping lines, carriers are forced to use all the allotted free days in order to be more flexible for successive deadlines. This has a twofold negative effect. First of all, the sea terminal premises are busy with containers that could be already moved to the hinterland, causing congestion and unnecessary use of capacity. Second of all, D&D causes less flexibility for departure times, affecting the use of trains or barges which are not easily adaptable to changes in the schedules.

Fazi designed some models for different systems and suggests new cost functions, like paying a small fee as of the first day for D&D and offering the shipment of the containers by train of barge ASAP. From numerical experiments, the dwelling time at the sea terminals could be reduced to about 50 % and transportation cost to about 10%.

About the author

Stefano Fazi was born in Rome, Italy in 1983. He studied Management Engineering

At the ‘Universitá degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata’. In 2009 he received his Master’s degree and started working as a project manager for IMET (consultancy group) in Rome. In 2010 he started his PhD at Eindhoven University.

Currently Fazi works at the Groningen University as assistant professor at the Faculty of economics and business.

More information or interested in participating in a project?

Read ‘Mode Selection, routing and scheduling for inland container transport’ ISBN 987-90-386-3676-4,

or contact:

Stefano Fazi, Groningen University, s.fazi@rug.nl,

Or Sophie Zijp, Dinalog zijp@dinalog.nl