An emission and cost analysis on stochastic arrival times and multiple quay utilization in the berth allocation and crane assignment problem

In this thesis the results from the work of Meisel and Bierwirth (2009) around the berth allocation and crane assignment problem are replicated. In summary, a construction heuristic, local refinements, squeaky wheel optimization and tabu search are re-evaluated. Although using different data sets, the main findings of Meisel and Bierwirth are confirmed. Next to this, the framework is extended to include vessel emissions, which is used to test a new strategy handling stochastic arrival times of vessels and to perform an analysis on using multiple quays. First, the cost of saving emissions is evaluated, which is found to increase exponentially by restricting vessels from speeding up. Then, a buffer zone recourse strategy is developed to deal with uncertainty of arrival times, which runs faster but performs worse than the SWO. Lastly, it is found that using one extra quay significantly reduces vessel emissions and increasingly reduces solution costs as instance sizes grow.