Abstract
The berth scheduling problem deals with the assignment of vessels to berths in a marine terminal, with the objective to maximize the ocean carriers’ satisfaction (minimize delays) and/or minimize the terminal operator's costs. In the existing literature, two main assumptions are made regarding the status of a vessel: (a) either all vessels to be served are already in the port before the planning period starts, or (b) they are scheduled to arrive after the planning period starts. The latter case assumes an expected time of arrival for each vessel, which is a function of the departure time of the vessel from the previous port, the average operating speed and the distance between the two ports. Recent increases in fuel prices have forced ocean carriers to reduce current operating speeds, while stressing to terminal operators the need to maintain the integrity of their schedule. In addition, several collaborative efforts between industry and government agencies have been proposed, aiming to reduce emissions from marine vessels and port operations. In light of these issues, this article presents a berth-scheduling policy to minimize vessel delayed departures and indirectly reduce fuel consumption and emissions produced by the vessels while in idle mode. Vessel arrival times are considered as a variable and are optimized to accommodate the objectives of the proposed policy while providing ocean carriers with an optimized vessel speed. Example problems using real data show that the proposed policy reduces the amount of emissions produced by vessels at the port in idle mode, optimizes fuel consumption and waiting time at the port by reducing vessel operating speeds to optimal levels and minimizes the effects of late arrivals to the ocean carriers’ schedule.
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Notes
The term hotelling refers to vessels using their auxiliary engines while docked in order to provide electrical power to the ship for climate control, lighting, cargo refrigeration, on-board cargo handling equipment, and other uses.
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Acknowledgements
This article is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants No. 0538901 and No. 0625515, and by the Environmental Bioinformatics and Computational Toxicology Center under grant GAD R832721-010. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their constructive comments.
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Golias, M., Saharidis, G., Boile, M. et al. The berth allocation problem: Optimizing vessel arrival time. Marit Econ Logist 11, 358–377 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/mel.2009.12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/mel.2009.12