Two decision models for berth allocation problem under uncertainty considering service level

This paper examines the berth allocation problem, which is to assign a quay space and a service time to the vessels that have to be loaded and unloaded at a container terminal within a given planning horizon, with consideration of uncertain factors, mainly including the arrival and operation time of the calling vessels. Based on the concept of conflict, two kinds of service level are proposed and two decision models are constructed to minimize the total operational cost, which includes delay cost and non-optimal berthing location cost. The first model satisfies the service level of a specific scenario and the second one considers the service level across all scenarios. Due to the NP-hardness of the constructed model, a two-stage heuristics algorithm is employed to solve the problem. Finally, extensive numerical experiments are conducted to test the performances of the two proposed models and algorithm and help the port planners make decisions.