Title: Collaborative scheduling of coal terminal loading-unloading based on hybrid flowshop model considering two-stage zero-waiting and task release time

Authors: Meng Yu; Yi Yu; Xiabin Zhang; Lijun He

Addresses: School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430063, China ' School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430063, China ' School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430063, China ' School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430063, China

Abstract: The coal terminal is vital in the 'north coal south transportation' strategy, supporting coal supply chain efficiency. Its operations - offloading, stacking, reclaiming, and loading - mirror a hybrid flowshop model but face coordination and constraint challenges. This study explores collaborative scheduling for four-stage operations to minimise completion time and balance equipment load. A multi-objective model with zero-wait loading/unloading is proposed. To solve the NP-hard problem, an improved chaos-based genetic particle swarm optimisation (CBGPSO) algorithm is developed. It combines particle swarm optimisation with a two-stage encoding scheme and a Metropolis-based evolutionary process. Elite crossover and chaos strategies enhance particle perturbation. Real coal terminal data is used for experiments, comparing algorithm performance. Results from multi-train scheduling confirm the model's effectiveness in reducing makespan and improving machine load balance.

Keywords: hybrid flowshop; coal terminal; loading and unloading integration; multi-objective particle swarm optimisation; collaborative scheduling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTL.2026.150448

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics, 2026 Vol.22 No.1, pp.25 - 59

Received: 07 Aug 2024
Accepted: 04 Jun 2025
Published online: 14 Dec 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article