A Genetic Algorithm with a Compact Solution Encoding for the Container Ship Stowage Problem

The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient heuristic for solving the stowage problem. Containers on board a container ship are stacked one on top of the other in columns, and can only be unloaded from the top of the column. A key objective of stowage planning is to minimize the number of c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of heuristics Vol. 8; no. 6; p. 585
Main Authors Dubrovsky, Opher, Levitin, Gregory, Penn, Michal
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston Springer Nature B.V 01.11.2002
Subjects
Container ships
Flexibility
Genetic algorithms
Heuristic
Linear programming
Planning
Ports
Software packages
Studies
Traveling salesman problem
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Summary:The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient heuristic for solving the stowage problem. Containers on board a container ship are stacked one on top of the other in columns, and can only be unloaded from the top of the column. A key objective of stowage planning is to minimize the number of container movements. A genetic algorithm technique is used for solving the problem. A compact and efficient encoding of solutions is developed, which reduces significantly the search space. The efficiency of the suggested encoding is demonstrated through an extensive set of simulation runs and its flexibility is demonstrated by successful incorporation of ship stability constraints. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:1381-1231
1572-9397
DOI:10.1023/A:1020373709350