A Decision-support Framework for Port Container Stowage Plan

With the development of international trade, container transportation increases rapidly. Loading large quantities of containers requires efficient port operations and an efficient container stowage plan (CSP). A CSP is the placement of containers onto the shipping plan slots, which should decrease loading cost and keep the ship stability. The yard operational efficiency, ship stability, and operational safety are the major factors that should be considered in port loading and unloading. Since, factors are related to others, to generate a CSP is proven to be NP-complete. This paper proposes a decision-support framework for determining a shipment plan, which is to achieve the optimal shipment objects by a planning model. The experimental results show that the proposed framework can improve the operating efficiency of the storage yard while keeping the ship’s stability and reducing the dangerous loading scenes.