ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Joint optimization of vessel scheduling and tugboat allocation in seaports with one-way navigation channels
Fuquan Xu 1
Hongxiang Ren 1
Ye Li 2
Jiahui Shi 3
Changhai Wang 4,5
Yulong Wang 6
Xinjian Wang 1
1. Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
2. Dalian Pilot Station, Dalian, China
3. Dalian Naval Academy, Dalian, China
4. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
5. Guangxi Communications Design Group CO., LTD., Nanning, China
6. Guangxi Pinglu Canal Digital Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., Nanning, China
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Abstract
With the continuous growth of port traffic volumes, limited navigation channel capacity and tugboat resources have emerged as major bottlenecks to port service efficiency, particularly in ports with one-way channel configurations, where vessel congestion is more pronounced. To address this challenge, this study investigates the joint optimization of vessel scheduling and tugboat allocation in a port with a one-way navigation channel and develops an optimization model to minimize the total waiting time of vessel movements. An improved genetic algorithm with local search (IGA-LS) is proposed to solve the model efficiently. Computational experiments based on data from a northern Chinese seaport demonstrate that the proposed IGA-LS algorithm outperforms several benchmark methods. Compared with the traditional first-come-first-served scheduling rule, the proposed joint scheduling framework reduces the total vessel movement waiting time by an average of 28.31%, with more pronounced improvements observed in larger-scale instances. These results indicate that the proposed model and algorithm can provide effective decision support for port authorities in formulating vessel scheduling and tugboat resource allocation plans.
Summary
Keywords
heuristic algorithms, Seaport operations, tidaltime windows, tugboat allocation, Vessel scheduling
Received
03 January 2026
Accepted
06 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Xu, Ren, Li, Shi, Wang, Wang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Changhai Wang
Disclaimer
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