Dynamic ship assignment problem with uncertain demands

Product tanker shipping companies in the spot market face severe volatility in demand and in price. We explore shipping companies' two problems: evaluating supply and demand of the market and assigning cargoes in order to maximize profitability. By approximating the market as a queueing system, we obtain utilization ratios, which effectively model supply and demand of the market. This approach directly evaluates the impact of ton-mile on utilization ratios, even a small growth of which may result in a significant supply shortage. Queueing approximation also allows formulation of dynamic ship assignment as a semi-Markov average cost problem, attaining stationary policies. When profit margins are low, a stationary policy frequently rejects cargoes. Despite rejections, it yields the highest profit per cargo, compared to other methods. Such optimal controls remain valid even when demand fluctuates.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Yoo Joon

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Christopher G. Caplice.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/103841

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/103841