Simulation model for container fleet sizing on dedicated route

Shipping companies operating with container transportation have the challenge of allocating an amount of ships with specific features (including transport capacity and speed), in a specific route, and meet the demand in a given period. For such, it is also necessary to make a container fleet available to the customers, which will be removed in the empty warehouse, loaded in the origins and sent to ports to be transported by the ships, in closed cycle, to other terminals that compose the route. This movement is based on a loading matrix of ships. This work presents a simulation model to dimension the quantity of containers required to operate with a ship fleet that attends determined route (in closed loop), and at the same time considers the loading operations of empty containers with customers, on land. It is presented a process of searching for better solutions provides results that minimize container fleet at its disposal.