integrated method for forecasting container slot booking in intercontinental liner shipping service

Intercontinental liner shipping services transport containers between two continents. this paper forecasts the number of containers to be transported through long-haul legs for the incoming trip of an intercontinental shipping service. considering the clear and unique container slot booking patterns in the historical data, three different forecasting models are developed, including piecewise linear regression model, autoregressive model, and artificial neural network model. these three models are further combined into an integrated model to simultaneously incorporate their merits in formulating the container slot booking patterns. test results show satisfactory forecasting precisions of the integrated forecasting model.