The Dynamic RORO Stowage Planning Problem

Reducing emissions from the Roll-on/Roll-off (RORO) shipping industry has seen an increase in focus in the past years. Reducing the turnaround time in ports through stowage planning will increase slow-steaming use. Stowage planning assigns cargo to positions on board the vessel. This paper studies how the dynamic arrival of cargo affects stowage planning by considering revenue from shipping cargo vs. fuel costs incurred from time spent waiting and stowing cargo. A mixed-integer program formulation and a heuristic approach are presented to solve the problem. The computational study shows how the heuristic can find stowage plans for the dynamic arrival of cargo. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to investigate algorithm sensitivity in relation to revenue, fuel costs, and cargo handling time. The results indicate a high sensitivity in the number of units of cargo stowed when these parameters fluctuate.