EMPTY CONTAINER MANAGEMENT FOR CONTAINER-ON-BARGE (COB) TRANSPORTATION: PLANNING HORIZON EFFECTS ON EMPTY CONTAINER MANAGEMENT IN A MULTI-MODAL TRANSPORTATION NETWORK

The report presents a computational analysis of the planning horizon efforts on empty container management for multimodal transportation networks. A distinctive aspect of the analysis is that three different modes are considered distinctly: truck, rail, and river barge. The barge mode makes the network structure and underlying operational problems interesting since it is the slowest and cheapest of the three modes. To analyze how the planning horizon affects the empty container flows in such a multimodal network, an integer programming model is developed. The sensitivities of initial inventory are discussed at each container pool, number of container pools in the system, and transport mode usage to the length of planning horizon. Controlled experiments are conducted using the actual Mississippi River basin network. Obtained results are discussed.