Berth allocation in container terminals that service feeder ships and deep-sea vessels

This paper treats a berth allocation problem in dedicated container terminals where feeder ships and container vessels are jointly served. When assigning quay space and a service time to each calling ship particular focus is put on the container exchange between feeder ships and vessels, so that the weighted number of containers delivered by feeder missing their intended vessel is minimized. The resulting berth allocation problem is formalized, complexity proofs are provided, and suited optimization procedures are presented and tested.