Coordination and Optimization Control Framework for Vessels Platooning in Inland Waterborne Transportation System

Vessels sailing in a single platoon could reduce resistance from the perspective of the whole platoon and the individual vessel, and contribute to improving energy benefits. Moreover, transportation energy costs and traffic efficiency are essential indicators for measuring waterborne transportation systems. We attempt to minimize...

A learning-based co-planning method with truck and container routing for improved barge departure times

Cooperation between container transport service providers can increase efficiency in the logistics sector significantly. However, cooperation between competitors requires co-planning methods that not only give the cooperating partners an advantage towards external competition but also protect the partners from losing information, clients and...

Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming for Energy-Efficient Container Handling: Formulation and Customized Genetic Algorithm

Energy consumption is expected to be reduced while maintaining high productivity for container handling. This paper investigates a new energy-efficient scheduling problem of automated container terminals, in which quay cranes (QCs) and lift automated guided vehicles (AGVs) cooperate to handle inbound and outbound containers. In our scheduling...

Vessel passage scheduling through cascaded bridges using mixed-integer programming

This paper addresses the problem of guaranteeing efficient inland waterway transport in the presence of sequential movable bridges, which must be operated to grant vessel passage. The main contribution is the formulation of the vessel passage scheduling problem as a mixedinteger programming problem. The scheduling algorithm receives vessel...

Secure Multi-party Co-planning of Barge Departures

Container transport requires real-time control and a high degree of cooperation to alleviate disturbances and perform smoothly without unnecessary environmental impact and monetary losses. The involved operators are, however, often reluctant to cooperate as they fear loosing valuable information and autonomy, eventually leading their clients...

Dynamic rolling horizon scheduling of waterborne AGVs for inter terminal transport

The demand for transport between terminals within port areas, known as inter terminal transport (ITT), is increasing. This paper proposes a dynamic rolling horizon scheduling strategy for ITT using waterborne Autonomous Guided Vessels (waterborne AGVs). The strategy is dynamic in that it can handle the dynamically arriving ITT requests and...

Cooperative multi-vessel systems in urban waterway networks

Urban waterways have great potential in cargo transport to relieve the congestion in the overloaded road networks. This paper explores the potential of applying cooperative multi-vessel systems (CMVSs) to improve the safety and efficiency of transport in urban waterway networks. A framework consisting of vessel train formation (VTF) and...

Coordinated optimization of equipment operations in a container terminal

Increasing international maritime transport drives the need for efficient container terminals. The speed at which containers can be processed through a terminal is an important performance indicator. In particular, the productivity of the quay cranes (QCs) determines the performance of a container terminal; hence QC scheduling has received...

Predictive quality-aware control for scheduling of potato starch production

Modern technologies have enabled approaches to estimate freshness of perishable products during production and distribution. This allows supply chains to apply more advanced decision support systems in order to further reduce the loss of perishable products. In this paper we focus on the postharvest scheduling of starch potatoes. In...

Optimal scheduling and routing of free-range AGVs at large scale automated container terminals

This work tackles the problem of controlling operations at an automated container terminal. In the context of large supply chains, there is a growing trend for increasing productivity and economic efficiency. New optimization models and algorithms are provided for scheduling and routing equipment that is moving containers in a quay area,...