Master thesis proposals Sabine Limbourg UER Operations Quantitative Methods and Operations Management (QuantOM) Air Cargo

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1 Master thesis proposals Sabine Limbourg UER Operations Quantitative Methods and Operations Management (QuantOM) Air Cargo The air cargo industry has grown over the last two decades. By 2006, airfreight has accounted for approximately 35 percent of global merchandise trade by value. The growth of air cargo can be explained by the industry trend towards the productions of high-value light-weighted goods, the shortening of product life cycles and adoption of just-in-time manufacturing philosophy; air service cost is significantly driven down Scholz AB, von Cossel J, 2011, Assessing the importance of hub airports for cargo carriers and its implications for a sustainable airport management, Research in Transportation Business & Management Prokop D, 2002, The logistics of air cargo co-mingling at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, Journal of Air Transport Management 8, Pages Airline and railway integration With respect to freight transport, air transport is very important for long distance transport and for connecting remote areas to the rest of the world. While efficient airports are vital to the economic development of their surrounding regions, the related air traffic, the handling of the goods in the airports and their distribution can cause a number of negative environmental impacts. This study will provide a description of the state-of-the-art, a SWOT analysis from the past and current practices, examples of the environmental problems related to airport activities and highlight a number of different policy instruments that can be used to limit the negative impacts. It will focus on some innovative airport solutions. In several case studies, it will assess intermodal best practice solutions for the integration of air and rail. As more and more airports are congested, airport operators and airlines are forced to turn more and more to connecting rail links for improvements. Givoni M & Banister, 2006, Airline and railway integration, Transport Policy 13 (2006) Chiambaretto P & Decker C, 2012, Air-rail intermodal agreements: Balancing the competition and environmental effects, Journal of Air Transport Management 23 (2012) 36-40

2 Collaborative networks Collaborative networks can provide an answer to the need to decrease logistics cost and maintain logistics service levels by shifting consolidated flows to modes that are better suited for handling large volumes (rail, barge, coastal shipping), so economies of scale can be obtained. This necessity has been increased by the tendency of globalization of industries, smaller shipments sizes, high frequencies, and the fragmentation of flows. Bas Groothedde, Cees Ruijgrok, Lóri Tavasszy, 2005, Towards collaborative, intermodal hub networks: A case study in the fast moving consumer goods market, Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Volume 41, Issue 6, Pages Container Safety Storage on a Port Terminal A container terminal is a complex and dynamic system. Many operations occur within the storage area: containers import, containers export and containers shifting. All these operations require the respect of many rules and even laws in order to guarantee the port safety and to prevent risks, especially for the hazardous material storage. Drayage Hamidou Hadj-Slimane M, Fournier and Sanlaville E, 2012, Container Safety Storage on a Port Terminal Drayage operations take place by truck between a terminal and shippers or receivers. Drayage operations have some distinct features, which differ from simple pick up and delivery in rail and road transport. Despite the relatively short distance of the truck movement compared to the rail line haul, drayage accounts for a large fraction (between 25% and 40%) of origin to destination expenses. High drayage costs seriously affect the profitability of intermodal service, and also limit the markets in which it can compete with road transport. Verma M, Verter V, Zufferey N, 2012, A bi-objective model for planning and managing rail-truck intermodal transportation of hazardous materials, Transportation Research Part E 48, Pages Caris A, Janssens G.K., 2009, A local search heuristic for the pre- and endhaulage of intermodal container terminals, Computers & Operations Research 36, Pages Nam Seok Kim, Bert Van Wee; 2011, The relative importance of factors that influence the break-even distance of intermodal freight transport systems, Journal of Transport Geography 19, Pages

3 Humanitarian logistics The basic task of humanitarian logistics comprises acquiring and delivering requested supplies and services, at the places and times they are needed, whilst ensuring best value for money. In the immediate aftermath of any disaster, these supplies include items that are vital for survival, such as food, water, temporary shelter and medicine, among others. Holguín-Veras et al, 2012, On the unique features of post-disaster humanitarian logistics, Journal of Operations Management Volume 30, Issue 7-8, Intelligent transport system The intelligent road traffic system is commonly composed by such elements as intelligent transportation technology, transportation infrastructure, management system and employees in this area, while, the core of the integrated transportation system is the rational management. The intelligent traffic management system (ITMS) is a branch of intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and is also the application of ITS in the field of traffic management. ITMS is actually a system that collects real-time traffic information by advanced techniques and then generates a series of strategies based on traffic control models, methodologies and theories. The optimized strategies are created and then distributed to relevant traffic control equipments, managers, road users by certain information releasing methods. In this way, the whole traffic system performs with the highest efficiency. Kaparias I et al., 2012, Development and Application of an Evaluation Framework for Urban Traffic Management and Intelligent Transport Systems Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 48, Zhenlin WEI, Peng ZHAO, Shulin AI, 2012, Efficiency Evaluation of Beijing Intelligent Traffic Management System Based on super-dea Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology, Volume 12, Issue 3, Vincent Marchau, Warren Walker, Ron van Duin, 2008, An adaptive approach to implementing innovative urban transport solutions Transport Policy, Volume 15, Issue 6,

4 Low emission zone Low emission zones are areas or roads where the most polluting vehicles are restricted from entering. This study will provide a description of the state-of-the-art, a SWOT analysis from the past and current practices, examples of the environmental problems related to city logistics and highlight a number of different policy instruments that can be used to limit the negative impacts. Boogaard et al., 2012, Impact of low emission zones and local traffic policies on ambient air pollution concentrations, Science of the Total Environment Zhang, K, Batterman, S & Dion, F, 2011, Vehicle emissions in congestion: Comparison of work zone, rush hour and free-flow conditions, Atmospheric Environment 45, 1929e1939 Jones A et al, 2012, A large reduction in airborne particle number concentrations at the time of the introduction of sulphur free diesel and the London Low Emission Zone, Atmospheric Environment 50; 129e138 Management of container terminals Container terminals are facilities that allow to trans-ship from one transportation mode to another and to store containers. The time-efficiency of terminals depends on how the trans-shipment or storage occur and on the spatial organization. C. Bierwirth, F. Meisel, 2011, A survey of berth allocation and quay crane scheduling problems in container terminals, European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 202, (3), Pages Vis and Koster, 2003, Transshipment of containers at a container terminal: an overview, European Journal of Operational Research 147 (1), Pages Ballis, A. and Golias, J., 2002, Comparative evaluation of existing and innovative rail-road freight transport terminals. Transportation Research Part A, vol. 36, Pages

5 Minimizing greenhouse gas emissions in intermodal freight transport Freight transport has undesirable effects on the environment. The most prominent of these is greenhouse gas emissions. Intermodal freight transport, where freight is shipped from origin to destination by a sequence of at least two transportation modes, offers the possibility of shifting freight (either partially or in full) from one mode to another in the hope of reducing the greenhouse emissions by appropriately scheduling the services and routing the freight. Traditional planning methods for scheduling services in an intermodal transportation network usually focus on minimizing travel or time-related costs of transport. We want to break away from such an approach by addressing the issue of incorporating environment-related costs into freight transportation planning. Bauer, J., Bektas, T. and Crainic, T.G. (2010) Minimizing greenhouse gas emissions in intermodal freight transport: An application to rail service design. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 61, Paper recycling network design Due to the natural scarcity of raw materials and to cost pressure, sustainable operations are one of the main challenges in gaining competitive advantages. This potential competitive advantage is the reason why the recycling of, e.g., glass, paper and plastics has grown considerably. Because the paper industry is one of the most important industries in the recycling sector, we will use it as a representative example for the following investigation. Kara S, Onut S, 2010, A two-stage stochastic and robust programming approach to strategic planning of a reverse supply network: The case of paper recycling, Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) Schweiger K & Sahamie R, A hybrid Tabu Search approach for the design of a paper recycling network, Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Resilience of Freight Transportation Networks Risks from accidents, weather-induced hazards, and terrorist attacks on freight and passenger transport systems have dramatically increased in recent years. The occurrence of such events can have tremendous impact on system performance, especially intermodal systems, and can lead to significant economic loss. Even less monumental incidents, such as derailment of cars from tangent track, can lead to network-wide disruptions in service and ensuing delays. A secure and functioning transportation system is of paramount importance to society. To ensure that effective transport services can be provided in a disaster s aftermath enabling

6 society to recover, agencies charged with constructing, managing and operating these systems must invest in measures that prevent or mitigate the effects of disaster incidents. Ishfaq, R., 2012, Resilience through flexibility in transportation operations, International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications Volume 15, Issue 4, Short-Sea-shipping Short Sea Shipping has attracted a lot of attention in the European Union in the last years. It is considered as a mode favoured to alleviate road congestion. Alas, promises have not been met and cargo transfers have not reached their objectives yet, despite strong financial will and a programme for modal shift implemented by the European Union. Douet M, Cappuccilli JF, 2011, A review of Short Sea Shipping policy in the European Union, Journal of Transport Geography 19, Pages Paixão A.C., Marlow P.B., 2002, Strengths and weaknesses of short sea shipping, Marine Policy 26, Pages Kapros S, Panou C, 2007, Chapter 10 Coastal Shipping and Intermodality in Greece: The Weak Link Research in Transportation Economics, Volume 21, Pages Transport of dangerous goods Although the industry has an excellent safety record, accidents do happen, and the consequences can be significant, due to the nature of the cargo. Reduction of hazardous material (hazmat) transportation risks can be achieved in many different ways. For example, we can consider the problem of designating hazardous materials routes in and through a major population centre with an objective of minimizing the total transport risk. Erkut E, Tjandra S.A., Verter V, 2007, Hazardous materials transportation, in C.Barnhart and G.Laporte (Eds.) Transportation, Handbook in OR & MS Vol 14, Elsevier, Pages Erkuta E and Alp O, 2007, Designing a road network for hazardous materials shipments, Journal Computers & Operations Research Volume 34, Issue 5, Pages Rongrong Li, Yee Leung, 2011, Multi-objective route planning for dangerous goods using compromise programming Journal of Geographical Systems 13, Pages

7 Warehouse design Warehouse design involves five major decisions determining the overall warehouse structure; sizing and dimensioning the warehouse and its departments; determining the detailed layout within each department; selecting warehouse equipment; and selecting operational strategies. The overall structure (or conceptual design) determines the material flow pattern within the warehouse, the specification of functional departments, and the flow relationships between departments. The sizing and dimensioning decisions determine the size and dimension of the warehouse as well as the space allocation among various warehouse departments. Department layout is the detailed configuration within a warehouse department, for example, aisle configuration in the retrieval area, pallet block-stacking pattern in the reserve storage area, and configuration of an Automated Storage/Retrieval System. The equipment selection decisions determine an appropriate automation level for the warehouse, and identify equipment types for storage, transportation, order picking, and sorting. The selection of the operation strategy determines how the warehouse will be operated, for example, with regards to storage and order picking. Baker, P & Canessa M, 2009, Warehouse design: A structured approach, European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 193, Issue 2, Gu J, Goetschalckx M, McGinnis L, 2010, Research on warehouse design and performance evaluation: A comprehensive review, European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 203, Issue 3, This list is not exhaustive; I am willing to discuss issues related to transportation, logistics or optimization problems. If you are interested in one of these topics, please me and provide a short description of your understanding of the subject.