Uncertainties in Liner Shipping and Ship Schedule Recovery: A State-of-the-Art Review

Each shipping line is expected to establish a reliable operating model, and the design of ship schedules is a key operational consideration. Long-term profits for shipping lines can be expected from a well-designed ship schedule. In today's liner service design, managing the time factor is critical. Shipping schedules are prone to different unexpected disruptions. Such disruptions would necessitate a near-real-time analysis of port capacity and re-design of the original ship schedule to offset the negative externalities. Ship schedule recovery strategies should be implemented to mitigate the effects caused by disruptions at ports or at sea, which may include, but are not limited to, ship sailing speed adjustment, handling rate adjustment at ports, port skipping, and port skipping with container diversion. A proper selection of ship schedule recovery strategies is expected to minimize deviations from the original ship schedule and reduce delays in the delivery of cargoes to the destination ports. This article offers a thorough review of the current liner shipping research primarily focusing on two major themes: (1) uncertainties in liner shipping operations; and (2) ship schedule recovery in response to disruptive events. On the basis of a detailed review of the available literature, the obtained results are carefully investigated, and limitations in the current state-of-the-art are determined for every group of studies. Furthermore, representative mathematical models are provided that could be further used in future research efforts dealing with uncertainties in liner shipping and ship schedule recovery. Last but not least, a few prospective research avenues are suggested for further investigation.