Truck Scheduling in Delivering Containers from an Outside Yard to Multiple Container Terminals Considering Carbon Emission and the Truck Appointment System

Abstract:

In consideration of low carbon emission and efficiency when trucks transport containers to multiple container terminals, and truck appointment system which is taken by container terminals to cope with the problem of irregular arrival of trucks, a scheduling model was established for trucks delivering containers from an outside yard to multiple container terminals, with the objective of minimizing the quantity of the dispatched outside yard’s trucks and the total carbon emission of the scheduling plan. A modified ant colony algorithm was designed to solve the model, and the truck scheduling plan for delivering containers from outside container yard to multiple container terminals in different time periods could be determined. Numerical experiments show that the proposed model and designed algorithm are effective. The study demonstrates that the trucks scheduling scheme can reduce the amount of trucks that the yard must hold and truck drivers’ working time. Therefore, the trucks scheduling scheme can balance and meet lowcarbon emission and truck efficiency requirements.

Key words:truck appointment; carbon emission; truck scheduling; container terminal; ant colony algorithm