Joint optimisation of berth and pipeline allocation for liquid chemical ports

Amid the rapid expansion of global chemical trade, liquid chemical ports currently suffer from low automation and reliance on manual experience. To address the high coupling of berths and pipelines, this study establishes a mixed-integer programming model for collaborative berth-pipeline allocation, integrating three operation modes (direct-connected pipelines, berth-connect pipelines, and manifold-connect pipelines) to minimise total vessel port time. A tailored memetic algorithm with adaptive local search (MA-ALS) is designed, incorporating problem-specific operators to enhance optimisation capability. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms other baselines. Furthermore, the study advises prioritising berth upgrade redundancy and identifying marginal benefit inflection points to optimise throughput capacity scientifically.