MHCL 2026 conference
50th Anniversary (1976–2026)

Section: Maritime and Port Logistics
Abstract: The global warming induced by Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions has become critical environmental problems. CO2 emission occupies over 90% of artificially emitted GHG. As related in CO2 emission from road traffic, we focus on freight transportation. In Japan, at inland transport for marine containers, on the inbound transport, a trailer truck transports a container from the marine terminal to a consignee, and an empty truck goes back to the terminal. And also on the outbound transportation, an empty truck movements from a shipper to the terminal, and a trailer truck transports it to the relevant shipper. We focus on a vehicle routing for container transport. There are three container conditions: inbound, outbound and empty, and there are two vehicle situations: trailer truck (with full or empty container loaded) and empty truck (as tractor only). In this study, we address the tractor head assignment to trailers (chassis) with full/empty container with considering the time window for visiting customers, which the objective is to minimize CO2 emissions. There are 13 to 18 % reductions of CO2 emissions in our proposed approach. Simultaneously, we can also obtain the number of trucks used,  4 to 20 % of trucks used can be reduced.

Etsuko Nishimura
Associate Professor
Kobe University
Graduate School of Maritime Sciences

Masaki Hayashida
Student (in those days)
Kobe University
Faculty of Maritime Sciences