Energy-Efficient and Integrated Allocation of Berths, Quay Cranes, and Internal Trucks in Container Terminals

Ahmed Karam, Amr Eltawil and Kristian Hegner Reinau
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Ahmed Karam: Freight Transport Research Group, Department of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Amr Eltawil: Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Egypt—Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria 21934, Egypt
Kristian Hegner Reinau: Freight Transport Research Group, Department of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-24

Abstract: Despite a significant number of studies that have focused on the operational efficiency of container terminals, existing literature has paid little attention to improving energy efficiency, e.g., energy consumption and negative externalities in container terminals. Most researchers consider energy-saving goals when allocating berths and quay cranes to vessels, assuming that internal trucks are in sufficient supply. Furthermore, recent studies have revealed that shortage of internal trucks has become an issue that greatly affects the operational and energy efficiencies of container terminals. This work presents a planning model that integrates berth allocation, quay crane assignment, and internal truck assignment problems. The developed model contributes to existing literature by including energy-saving goals in the integrated planning of these problems, as well as including important realistic factors such as shortages of internal trucks and handling time estimations, thus producing a reliable handling plan that achieves energy and cost savings without additional truck investment. To solve realistic problems, a Lagrangian relaxation-based method is developed. Furthermore, the benefits of the developed approach are demonstrated by comparing it to an existing approach. On average, our approach could improve the solutions of the integrated problem with different numbers of internal trucks by 6% compared to the solutions obtained using the existing approach.

Keywords: berth allocation; internal trucks; Lagrangian relaxation; mathematical modeling; quay cranes; energy-saving; container terminals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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