Column generation for low carbon berth allocation under uncertainty

Abstract

This article investigates a low carbon-oriented berth allocation and quay crane assignment problem considering vessels’ uncertain arrival time and loading/unloading workload for vessels. A two-stage stochastic programming model is formulated based on a set of scenarios. The first stage designs a baseline schedule and the second stage adjusts the schedule in each scenario. A solution method is developed by using column generation techniques. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the efficiency of our column generation-based solution method and the effectiveness of the proposed decision model. Some sensitivity analysis is also performed to draw some managerial implications.

Keywords:

• Green port
• carbon taxation
• column generation
• berth allocation
• quay crane assignment
• uncertainty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71831008, 71671107) and the National Key R&D Program of China (grant number 2018YFE0102700). Thanks are due to the referees for their valuable comments.