The Stowage of Containers for Inland Shipping: A System for Maximizing Containers Allocation and Meeting Stability Requirements

In many countries worldwide, inland shipping is a reliable and viable option to transport maritime containers inland. This modality comes with a set of operational challenges, among which the stowage of containers, i.e. the positioning of a set of containers onboard, is a complex and delicate task. In this paper, we develop a DSS to support the generation of feasible stowage plans, with the goal of maximizing the amount of containers onboard, while guaranteeing stability and complying with a set of rules. In this regard, we propose the case of inland shipping in the Netherlands. The stowage problem is modelled with a mixed integer linear programming mathematical formulation. Numerical experiments validate the model and give insights on the complexity of the problem for real-world size instances.