En-route recharging scheduling strategy for electric trucks serving inter-terminal container transportation

Container ports are increasingly deploying electric trucks (ETs) for inter-terminal transportation (ITT). However, en-route recharging activities, which reduce ITT efficiency, are necessary for ETs because of limited battery capacity. This study proposes a real-time strategy to schedule the en-route recharging activities for ETs. The strategy dynamically monitors the ITT system, and simultaneously designates charging piles for ETs and determines their positions in the service sequences. An ET may be designated to a remote but shorter-queued pile. The total queue time of the ETs served by a designated pile can be reduced by adjusting the service sequence. The effectiveness is demonstrated in comparison with an alternative strategy in a real-world case. The results indicate that the proposed strategy effectively reduces container throughput time by 21.8% and ET energy consumption by 12.3%. Sensitivity analyses suggest that the strategy is applicable for ports with multiple charging stations and moderate ET fleet size.