Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1 Introduction
The acceleration in the growth rate of the world economy and the consequently
increasing global trade have led to a growing demand for transporting goods over
the last decades. The increase in global trade has also been accompanied by an
increase in the use of containers as a safe and inexpensive mode of transport for
goods. Asariotis et al. (
2010
) in Review of Maritime Transport (
2010
) reports that
the container flows among Asia—US—Europe continuously increased from 1995
to 2010. In 1995, the total container flow was 15 million TEUs and a more than
threefold increase, 50 million TEUs, was seen in 2010. In a report from Drewry
Shipping Consultants, Ltd. (
2010
), the global container trade was estimated to be
continuously growing and reach the volume of 200 million TEUs in 2015.
Recently, green shipping has received more and more attentions, as traditional
shipping produces large CO
2
emissions. Consequently, there is increasing pressure
on governments and industries to come up with (more) climate-friendly strategies
(Geerlings and Duins
2011
). Many international agreements have been signed for
the reduction of CO
2
emissions such as the Kyoto Protocol. Transport systems have
significant impacts on climate change as they account for between 20 and 25 %
of world energy consumption and CO
2
emission (Moriarty and Honnery
2008
).
However, it is predicted that the growth of containers flowing from Asia will accel-
erate, and that the number of container handlings will rise from 11 million per year
in 2008 to 33 million per year in 2033 (Geerlings and Duins
2011
). This growth will
account for a significant increase in the contribution of CO
2
emissions caused by
container handling (Geerlings and Duins
2011
). It is reported that the operations of
container terminal contribute not only CO
2
(and thereby adding to climate change)
but also other emissions such as NO
x
, SO
x
, and particulate matter which affect
human health. This is particular critical as container terminals are often located
close to population centers. Several studies have been conducted on air pollution
at seaports such as Danish seaports (Saxe and Larsen
2004
), Port of Los Angeles
(Starcrest Consulting Group
2011
), Port of Piraeus (Tzannatos
2010
) and Belgian
ports (Meyer et al.
2008
) and they unanimously indicate that the emissions could
induce health problems to people living or working near the ports. Some researches
have been studied on optimizing the supply chain networks. Bocewicz et al. (
2012
)
addressed the cyclic scheduling for supply chain network. Sitek and Wikarek (
2013
)
proposed an hybrid approach for modeling and solving constrained problems that
is recommended for decision-making problems in the supply chain.
At container terminals, the emissions come primarily from vessels, harbor
crafts, container handling equipment, rail, and heavy-duty vehicles. Pachakis et al.
(
2008
) investigate emissions at a port and find that heavy duty vehicles (includ-
ing trucks) are the second largest polluter after the vessels themselves. Further, for
CO-emissions heavy duty vehicles are in fact the worst polluters of all (Pachakis
et al.
2008
). This could indicate efforts should focus on controlling the source of
emissions such as using cleaner fuel, upgrading engines, or using alternative power
sources. However, this is a very costly and time consuming approach. An alternative
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