Repositioning with unreliable carriers: The case of marine chassis equipment at container ports

Chassis shortage and, especially, dislocation have become major recurring challenges for the maritime industry in the U.S. To prevent chassis dislocation, chassis pool managers at container ports can work with third-party repositioning partners to pro-actively reposition chassis between the different chassis storage yards within the port complex. One challenge that arises in practice is that not all repositioning requests made by the chassis pool manager are fulfilled, i.e. repositioning partners can be unreliable. This paper contributes to our understanding of the impact of unreliable repositioning partners on chassis shortages by presenting a stochastic model to describe the day-to-day evolution of chassis at container ports. Expressions for the chassis shortage probability and the expected time until a shortage are rigorously derived. Using a detailed case study employing real-world data, (counterintuitive) managerial insights are revealed and discussed that can be used to help formulate policies when managing chassis.