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To take the maintenance cost and scraping income of empty containers into account, the containers are divided into different stages of lifecycle by the time they have been put into use. Based on the given container shipping route alternatives and loaded container OD, a mixed integer programming model is built to optimize the liner shipping network, the moving paths for the loaded containers, the sites for putting the new ordered containers into use, the sites for craping the old containers and which lifecycle stage of containers to choose for container transportation. The area which consists of China, Japan and South Korea, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States is used to do the case study. The calculation results show that 93% of the new containers are put into use in China, the ratio of containers scrapped in Europe and the United States reaches 64%, while 74% of the empty containers used for shipping cargos from China to the United States are at or near the ends of their lifecycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the unique characteristics of West Africa was addressed. The game relationship between the owner and the port operator, and the relationship among the hub ports as well as the geography risk in West Africa were all considered. Accordingly, based on the principle of equilibrium, a mixed-integer model was established. The model could collaboratively optimize the hub port investment program (including the selection of investment targets, the amount of investment ports, and the investment quota) as well as the inland safe path setting scheme. The objective of this model was to minimize the regional integrated transportation costs. A genetic Frank-Wolf hybrid algorithm was proposed based on genetic algorithm to solve this model. The results show that the selection of investment targets in hub ports, the amount of investment ports, and the investment quota concerning security risks can be optimized by the proposed model, which can also simultaneously improve the corresponding inland safe path network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]