A column generation heuristic for local drayage routing given a port access appointment system

This paper studies methods for managing a fleet of trucks providing container pickup and delivery service (drayage) to a port with an appointment-based access control system. Responding to growing access congestion and its resultant impacts, many U.S. port terminals have implemented appointment systems, but little is known about the impact of such systems on drayage fleet efficiency. To address this knowledge gap, we develop a drayage operations optimization approach based on a column generation integer programming heuristic that explicitly models a time-slot port access control system. The approach determines pickup and delivery sequences with minimum transportation cost. We use the framework to develop an understanding of the potential efficiency impacts of access appointment systems on drayage operations, and find that the fleet size required to complete a set of drayage tasks can be quite sensitive to small changes in time-slot access capacities at the port.