Investigation of berth allocation problem in container ports considering the variety of disruption

Abstract

While a variety of disruptions are involved in the daily operation of container ports, the disruption management process in practice highly relies on the port operators’ experience or follows simple service rules. A need exists for a systematic way to adopt mathematical models to deal with these uncertainties. Considering the significance of the berth in the ports, we investigate the berth allocation problem (BAP) involved with different disruptions from a proactive perspective. We propose a mathematical model and an algorithm that can help operators make robust berth allocation schedules in a more maneuverable way instead of relying on their working experience. The research is presented in the following steps: initially, potential port disruptions related to the BAP are identified; then, based on the identification process, a proactive optimization model is formulated to generate baseline berth allocation schedule, minimizing the baseline schedule cost in the deterministic situation and the recovery cost in the disruption scenarios; finally, due to the characteristic of the BAP, a multi-stage heuristic algorithm is developed to solve large-scale problems. Algorithmic solutions to randomly generated computational instances are compared with the CPLEX solver to validate the reliability and the effectiveness of the algorithm. The difference in the recovery cost and the total cost between the proactive model and a deterministic model shows that the proposed model can generate berth allocation schedules of better robustness and maneuverability that help in practice.