A meta-heuristic approach for the transshipment of containers in maritime container terminals

Abstract

The present paper introduces a new multi-objective variant of the Berth Allocation Problem in the context of maritime container terminals. Specifically, this optimization problem seeks to minimize the waiting times of the incoming container vessels to serve, the costs derived from the movement of containers around the terminal, and the time the containers are at the terminal. This optimization problem is solved by means of an Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search, which uses a dynamic parameter to destroy part of the solutions while a building method is designed to later rebuild them. The computational performance of this technique is assessed over a wide range of realistic scenarios. The results indicate its high efficiency and effectiveness, reporting high-quality solutions in all the cases within short computational times.