Title: A bi-objective approach to minimise cost and CO₂ emissions in intermodal freight transport for biomass energy

Authors: Rizwan Shoukat; Xiaoqiang Zhang

Addresses: School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China; National Engineering Laboratory of Integrated Transportation Big Data Application Technology, Chengdu, China; Lab of National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, No. 111, North Second Ring Road, Chengdu, China ' School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China; National Engineering Laboratory of Integrated Transportation Big Data Application Technology, Chengdu, China; Lab of National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, No. 111, North Second Ring Road, Chengdu, China

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the bi-objective problem of minimising cost and CO₂ emissions in the supply of biofuels for producing cheaper biomass energy in Pakistan. Our research studied the problem by taking wheat straw (WS) and Brassica campestris (BC) as biofuels for a biomass plant. The bi-objective problem has been formulated with a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. The data is obtained from one of the largest paper and board (P&B) industries in Pakistan. We solved our problem by applying a genetic algorithm (GA). Our results show a 50.4% saving by switching from road to road-rail transport to meet the demand of 1,000 tons of biofuels per day, as well as a 66.35% reduction in CO₂ emissions. Pareto optimal solutions generated by the genetic algorithm facilitate decision makers by trading off cost and CO₂ emissions. Moreover, this study can be extended by investigating the effects of biomass energy on the price of the product and markets.

Keywords: biofuels; biomass plant; genetic algorithm; cost; intermodal; CO₂ emissions; paper and board.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTL.2022.126929

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics, 2022 Vol.15 No.3/4, pp.329 - 354

Received: 29 Dec 2020
Accepted: 08 Jun 2021
Published online: 14 Nov 2022 *

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