A VNDS Approach for the Liner Shipping Transport in a Structure of Hub-and-Spoke with Sub-Hub

In this work, a network structures type hub-and-spoke combining short alternative paths and economy of scale is provided trying to minimize the demand routing cost in liner shipping transport. Deep sea operation is done by direct connections between hubs and short sea operation is represented by circular route inside each cluster (regions). Developed models are classified as hub location-routing problems. A structure with sub-hubs (nodes with multiple allocation), allowing alternative paths, is compared with a structure without sub-hub. A Variable Neighborhood Decomposition Search (VNDS) was implemented for testing large problem instances.