Improved Waterway Network Maintenance Strategies via Genetic Algorithms

Tasked with operations and maintenance of the navigable waterways throughout the nation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must ensure sufficient depths in the ports and channels to allow commercial shipping vessels to move throughout the marine transportation network efficiently. Without regular maintenance dredging, the waterways experience sedimentation and resulting reductions in navigable depths, forcing vessels to travel at shallower depths by carrying less cargo, thereby increasing overall shipping costs. Since maintenance dredging funds are not available to fully maintain every federal navigation project to authorized dimensions, the Corps must determine the optimal distribution of funds across the ports and waterways to ensure minimum disruptions to shipping and maximum economic benefits nationally. To address this need, in this study detailed tonnage data from the Corps’ Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center for both deep and shallow-draft cargo are used along with representative shoaling rates and associated annual maintenance dredging costs for a slate of port areas around the country. A genetic algorithm (GA) is employed in pursuit of improved cost-effectiveness for annual maintenance dredging conducted across a large waterway network over a 20-year maintenance horizon, with total supported system tonnage used as the objective function quantity. The multi-year simulations are conducted for constrained budget scenarios in 10% increments for hundreds of port areas nationally. Comparisons with a project-based heuristic are made to gage the validity of the GA output.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AW010 Ports and Channels.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Mitchell, Kenneth Ned
  • Winton, Corey
  • Cowan, Mark
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Channels (Waterways); Costs; Dredging; Economic benefits; Genetic algorithms; Maintenance; Ports; Strategic planning; Tonnage; Water transportation; Waterways
• Identifier Terms: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Uncontrolled Terms: Budget constraints
• Subject Areas: Economics; Maintenance and Preservation; Marine Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration; I60: Maintenance; I70: Traffic and Transport;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01557048
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-5963
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 16 2015 4:41PM