With the advancement of automation in transportation, the need to improve the operation efficiency of container terminals has increased. The most important determinant of container-handling efficiency is the productivity of equipment, such as quay cranes, automated lifting vehicles, storage yards, and yard cranes. Most previous studies have sought to optimize equipment assignments and scheduling independently and have considered only a loading or an unloading process. As loading and unloading processes occur simultaneously and the equipment operations are highly interrelated, it is important to direct the operations in an integrated manner that reflects the characteristics of automated container terminals. This paper presents a new mixed-integer programming model for analyzing the integrated problem of assigning resources and scheduling, which also considers the limited quantity of critical equipment. To solve the integrated optimization model, a genetic algorithm (GA) is developed. Since the critical equipment, such as yard cranes, are limited, and thus, restricting the efficiency of terminals, a sharing policy is proposed to improve the GA to shorten the operation time of both the loading and unloading processes. Experiments show that the improved GA proposed in this paper can obtain the optimal/near-optimal solutions in short CPU times, therefore it is efficient in solving the integrated equipment assignment and scheduling problem. The results obtained from the sharing policy are superior to those obtained from a non-sharing approach.

Purpose: Due to their very different contexts, the responses made by property hosts to online reviews can differ from those posted by hotel managers. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of the responding behavior of hosts on peer-to-peer property rental platforms. Design/methodology/approach: This study applied a comprehensive framework based on the theory of planned behavior. Empirical models are constructed based on 89,967 guest reviews with their associated responses to reveal the responding pattern of property hosts. Findings: Unlike hotel managers, property hosts are more likely to reply to positive than to negative reviews; moreover, when they do choose to respond to negative reviews, they are likely to do so negatively, in a “tit-for-tat” way. This study also finds that one reason for the difference of responding patterns between property hosts and hotel managers is the hosts’ lack of experience of consumer relationship management and service recovery. Research limitations/implications: This study provides a good start point for future theoretical development regarding effective responding strategy on peer-to-peer property rental platforms, as well as some useful implications for practitioners. Originality/value: This study is an early attempt to analyze the impact of the particularity of emerging platforms on the responding behavior of service providers based on a comprehensive conceptual framework and empirical model thus provides a good starting point for the further investigation of effective response strategies on these emerging platforms.