Development of a Machine Learning-Based Framework for Predicting Vessel Size Based on Container Capacity

Abstract

Ports are important hubs in logistics and supply chain systems, where the majority of the available data is still not being fully exploited. Container throughput is the amount of work done by the TEU and the ability to handle containers at a minimal cost. This capacity of container throughput is the most important part of the scale of services, which is a crucial factor in selecting port terminals. At the port container terminal, it is necessary to allocate an appropriate number of available quay cranes to the berth before container ships arrive at the port container terminal. Predicting the size of a ship is especially important for calculating the number of quay cranes that should be allocated to ships that will eventually dock at the port terminal. Machine learning techniques are flexible tools for utilizing and unlocking the value of the data. In this paper, we used neighborhood component analysis as a tool for feature selection and state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms for multiclass classification. The paper proposes a novel two-stage approach for estimating and predicting vessel size based on container capacity. Our proposed approach revealed seven unique features of port data, which are the essential parameters for the identification of the vessel size. We obtained the highest average classification accuracy of 97.6% with the linear support vector machine classifier. This study paves a new direction for research in port logistics incorporating machine learning.

Keywords

• port logistics
• vessel size
• Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU)
• machine learning
• feature engineering
• classification