A dynamic vessel fleet planning model in uncertain circumstances

This paper aims to establish a dynamic vessel fleet planning model in uncertain circumstance, which offers the shipping companies the appropriate development strategy. Based on the characteristics of the shipping market, we consider the market volatility faced by the shipping companies on the strategies of the fleet planning. Firstly, we establish a forecast model to predict the future shipping demand by virtue of Grey - Markov chain. Then we bring the shipping demand as an uncertainty into the fleet planning, further, a dynamic fleet planning model in uncertain circumstances is established from the view of minimizing the total operating costs. Finally, we use an example to verify the model and the algorithm presented. The results show that the model presented is much better. The uncertainties we here bring into the fleet planning play an important role in the decision-making of the shipping companies, which can offers the guarantee for the appropriate development of the fleet.