Distributionally robust joint chance constrained vessel fleet deployment problem

We study the problem of vessel fleet deployment (VFD) for liner shipping under uncertain shipment demands. The aim is to minimise the sum of vessel chartering cost and vessel-route operating cost, while restricting shipment demand overflow risk, i.e., the risk of demand exceeding the shipping service capability. Lacking historical data, we use the first two moments to construct an ambiguous set to characterize the unknown distributions of demands. Hence, we establish a model together with joint chance constraint, in a distributionally robust (DR) fashion. We propose various solution approaches.