Inageneralcase,containershipservesmanydifferentportsoneachvoyage.Astowageplanningforcontainershipmadeatoneportmusttakeaccountoftheinfluenceonsubsequentports.Sothecomplexityofstowageplanningproblemincreasesduetoitsmulti-portsnature.ThisproblemisNP-hardproblem.Inordertoreducethecomputationalcomplexity,theproblemisdecomposedintotwosub-problemsinthispaper.First,containershipstowageproblem(CSSP)isregardedas'packingproblem',ship-baysontheboardofvesselareregardedasbins,thenumberofslotsateachbayaretakenascapacitiesofbins,andcontainerswithdifferentcharacteristics(homogeneouscontainersgroup)aretreatedasitemspacked.Atthisstage,therearetwoobjectivefunctions,oneistominimizethenumberofbayspackedbycontainersandtheotheristominimizethenumberofoverstows.Secondly,containersassignedtoeachbaysatfirststageareallocatetospecialslot,theobjectivefunctionsaretominimizethemetacentricheight,heelandoverstows.Thetaboosearchheuristicsalgorithmareusedtosolvethesubproblem.Themainfocusofthispaperisonthefirstsubproblem.Acasecertifiesthefeasibilityofthemodelandalgorithm.
