Detour-Aware Traffic Organization Under Local Congestion and Navigational Control in Port Waters

Continuous port expansion and growing vessel traffic have intensified congestion and operational complexity in complex port waters, calling for more efficient use of navigation infrastructure. Detour routing through alternative navigational paths provides an effective means of redistributing vessel flows when local congestion or navigational control constrain regular routes. This study proposes an integrated detour-aware vessel traffic management problem (IDA-VTMP) that jointly coordinates route selection and vessel timing under channel-specific navigation rules, intersection-entry restrictions, tidal windows, berth conflicts, and linked inbound and outbound tasks. A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed to minimize total weighted waiting and detour delays. A hybrid enhanced column generation algorithm (EALNS-CG), incorporating high-quality column initialization and refinement strategies, is developed to efficiently solve the problem. Numerical experiments demonstrate that EALNS-CG achieves superior solution quality and computational performance compared with benchmark methods. Introducing detour options reduces vessel delays by up to 29.83% under the existing navigation rules, demonstrating the operational benefits of coordinating vessel routing and scheduling through flexible use of available channels.