Title: Planning the berth allocation problem in developing countries with multiple cargos and cargo priority by a mathematical model and a clustering search metaheuristic

Authors: Rodrigo De Alvarenga Rosa; Glaydston Mattos Ribeiro; Geraldo Regis Mauri; Winnie Fracaroli

Addresses: Graduate Program in Civil Engineering – Transport, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil ' Graduate Program in Transport – COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ' Graduate Program in Chemistry, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil ' Industrial Engineer Department, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil

Abstract: Some Brazilian ports operate several different cargos. These ports were privatised, and to avoid the private companies to restrict their operations to some few profitable cargos, the Brazilian Government established rules, called cargo priorities, to ensure that all cargos are handled at the ports. These rules have a direct impact on port operations, especially when it comes to defining the allocation of berth space for vessels. Thus, this paper presents a mathematical model and a clustering search (CS) metaheuristic for the berth allocation problem with multiple cargos and cargo priorities, considering time and space constraints. The paper is motivated by a port terminal located in Brazil, which handles containers, granites and cars. CS solved both instances based on real data and instances created to test large problems. An extensive analysis of all the results is also presented.

Keywords: berth allocation problem; BAP; cargo priority; clustering search; CS; port planning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2017.087785

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2017 Vol.28 No.4, pp.397 - 418

Received: 30 Mar 2016
Accepted: 10 Jul 2016
Published online: 02 Nov 2017 *

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