Optimizing Sulfur Emission Control Areas for Shipping

Lu Zhen (), Dan Zhuge (), Shuanglu Zhang (), Shuaian Wang () and Harilaos N. Psaraftis ()
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Lu Zhen: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
Dan Zhuge: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
Shuanglu Zhang: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
Shuaian Wang: Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon 999077, Hong Kong
Harilaos N. Psaraftis: Department of Technology, Management, and Economics, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

Transportation Science, 2024, vol. 58, issue 3, 614-638

Abstract: The design of emission control areas (ECAs), including ECA width and sulfur limits, plays a central role in reducing sulfur emissions from shipping. To promote sustainable shipping, we investigate an ECA design problem that considers the response of liner shipping companies to ECA designs. We propose a mathematical programming model from the regulator’s perspective to optimize the ECA width and sulfur limit, with the aim of minimizing the total sulfur emissions. Embedded within this regulator’s model, we develop an internal model from the shipping liner’s perspective to determine the detoured voyage, sailing speed, and cargo transport volume with the aim of maximizing the liner’s profit. Then, we develop a tailored hybrid algorithm to solve the proposed models based on the variable neighborhood search meta-heuristic and a proposition. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology through extensive numerical experiments and conduct sensitivity analyses to investigate the effect of important ECA design parameters on the final performance. The proposed methodology is then extended to incorporate heterogeneous settings for sulfur limits, which can help regulators to improve ECA design in the future.

Keywords: sustainable shipping; emission control area design; cargo allocation; path and speed optimization; sulfur emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:58:y:2024:i:3:p:614-638

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