Title: Geography sets the tone to tramp routing

Authors: Risto Laulajainen

Addresses: Gothenburg Business and Law School, Vasagatan 1, Box 630, SE-405-30 Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract: The paper compares contemporary routing and scheduling as promoted by decision sciences (DS) with the emergence of operational areas from trade flows and corollary rate levels, both typical geographical issues. DS handle well-structured regional problems from a one-to-three-month perspective with formal models, supported by detailed data, and offer tangible answers for practical use. Geography also prepares quarterly and longer itineraries, subject to cargo availability, but with this being at a global scale between regions rather than ports, is more descriptive than analytical, and acknowledges data shortcomings with ensuing vagueness in results.

Keywords: itineraries; local markets; rating systems; routing; scheduling; tramp shipping; shipping routes; geography.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTL.2010.035500

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics, 2010 Vol.2 No.4, pp.364 - 382

Published online: 30 Sep 2010 *

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