Multi-vessel placement in multi-chamber inland waterway transport locks using switching max-plus algebra
Pablo Segovia (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, CSIC-UPC - Instituto de Robotica e Informatica Industrial (IRII))
Raphael Ummels (Student TU Delft)
Ton van den Boom (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)
Vasso Reppa (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)
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Abstract
This paper presents a novel scheduling approach for inland waterway transport (IWT) vessels that must pass through multi-chamber locks. A switching max-plus linear (SMPL) model is built to determine, for each vessel, the most appropriate route, the arrival times at relevant waypoints as well as at the destination, the relative order in which it moves through the network with respect to other vessels, its assignment to certain lock chambers together with other vessels, and its position inside each chamber. The SMPL constraints are translated to mixed integer linear programming (MILP) constraints for the optimization problem to be solvable, and objectives minimizing arrival times or arrival time offsets are defined. The proposed approach is tested on a multi-lock waterway, and its performance is compared to the current state of practice using relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), which allows to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach.