Managing surcharge risk in strategic fleet deployment : a partial relaxed MIP model framework with a case study on China-built ships

Abstract

Container liner shipping companies operate within a complex environment where they must balance profitability and service reliability. Meanwhile, evolving regulatory policies, such as surcharges imposed on ships of a particular origin or type on specific trade lanes, introduce new operational challenges. This study addresses the heterogeneous ship routing and demand acceptance problem, aiming to maximize two conflicting objectives: weekly profit and total transport volume. We formulate the problem as a bi-objective mixed-integer programming model and prove that the ship chartering constraint matrix is totally unimodular, enabling the reformulation of the model into a partially relaxed MIP that preserves optimality while improving computational efficiency. We further analyze key mathematical properties showing that the Pareto frontier consists of a finite union of continuous, piecewise linear segments but is generally non-convex with discontinuities. A case study based on a realistic liner shipping network confirms the model’s effectiveness in capturing the trade-off between profit and transport volume. Sensitivity analyses show that increasing freight rates enables higher profits without large losses in volume. Notably, this paper provides a practical risk management framework for shipping companies to enhance their adaptability under shifting regulatory landscapes.