Safe Optimal Vessel Planning on Natural Inland Waterways

Despite inland ports play an essential role in today's global logistics chain, many problems still remain unsolved. One of the main challenges that inland waterways face is the trip planning of cargo vessels. A correct trip planning does not only improve the efficiency and prestige of the port, but is also crucial to ensure the safety of operations. This issue is particularly critical in the case of natural waterways whose depth and width are conditioned by natural phenomena that, in principle, cannot be controlled. This is the case of the Guadalquivir river, a waterway that connects the Atlantic Ocean and the inland Port of Seville in the south of Spain. In this context, this work proposes a two-step solution to optimize the time needed for vessels to complete their journey through the waterway while considering the constraint imposed by the time-varying depth and encountering situations. The outcome is the set of times when vessels are required to cross a series of boundaries delimiting the different sections of the waterway. The advantages of the proposed approach are studied in contrast to a first-arrived first-served scheduling solution in terms of optimality and feasibility.