Greening container terminals through optimization: a systematic review on recent advances

Abstract

Container terminals are essential nodes in global trade, facilitating worldwide cargo flows between various transport modes. However, their operations contribute significantly to global emissions, producing greenhouse gases like CO₂ and pollutants such as nitrogen oxide. Mitigating that impact requires integrating green technologies and goals as well as exploiting renewable energy sources into terminal planning and decision support systems. Optimization techniques are key for driving terminals into this green transformation. In recent years, there has been a relevant increase in research and attention to greening ports. This growing interest includes the development of effective strategies and optimization approaches to reduce the terminal’s environmental impact. This systematic literature review examines relevant studies in optimization and greening terminals from the past two years, highlighting examples such as implementing microgrids, cold ironing, autonomous electric vehicles, retrofitting yard machinery, or promoting truck platooning. We propose a research agenda to guide future efforts in this direction.