Berth allocation at indented berths for mega-containerships

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2006.03.034
• Publication Date: 2006-05-20T11:22:30Z
• Authors: Akio Imai; Etsuko Nishimura; Masahiro Hattori; Stratos Papadimit...
• Keywords: 0502 economics and business; 05 social sciences; 0211 other engineering and technologies; 02 engineering and technology

This paper addresses the berth allocation problem at a multi-user container terminal with indented berths for fast handling of mega-containerships. In a previous research conducted by the authors, the berth allocation problem at a conventional form of the multi-user terminal was formulated as a nonlinear mathematical programming, where more than one ship are allowed to be moored at a specific berth if the berth and ship lengths restriction is satisfied. In this paper, we first construct a new integer linear programming formulation for easier calculation and then the formulation is extended to model the berth allocation problem at a terminal with indented berths, where both mega-containerships and feeder ships are to be served for higher berth productivity. The berth allocation problem at the indented berths is solved by genetic algorithms. A wide variety of numerical experiments were conducted and interesting findings were explored.