Abstract
This study analyzes the impact of foldable containers on cost savings in empty container relocation over the hinterland transport of seaports. Folding empty containers to be bundled in one trip offers opportunities to save distribution costs in container drayage in the hinterland. We model empty container relocation by trucks as a vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery to optimize the number and the trip distance of trucks. Numerical experiments are carried out with serious empty container repositioning scenarios that are caused by extreme imbalanced trades. The study finds that foldable containers can significantly reduce the number and the trip distance of trucks compared to standard containers and hence will result in substantial cost savings.
