Abstract: This paper aims at solving the problem of ineffective dispatching status for flatcars in shipyard transportation tasks using the task time window and the loading constraints of various types of flatcars and blocks as constraints. Considering the fact that the weight of a single large block exceeds the maximum loading capacity of a flatcar during actual transportation, this paper proposes a method of cooperative transportation using multiple flatcars. Aimed at establishing an optimization model, the optimal objects set the no-load travel time and waiting time for the task as the weight of the flatcars. Then, a tabu search algorithm is designed to solve the model proposed. Taking the actual data of a shipyard as an example, the application of the model is verified by specific examples. The results show that the method proposed provides a better scheduling scheme which can solve the transportation problem of large blocks and better realize the efficient utilization of resources.

Key words: dispatch between storage yards, multi-type flatcars, multi-flatcar cooperative transportation, time window, tabu search algorithm