Vessel turnaround time prediction: A machine learning approach

Uncertainty in vessel turnaround time (VTT) is troublesome and would reduce the operational efficiency in port management, potentially causing economic losses. Despite vessels generally providing their estimated departure time (EDT), there is frequently a considerable difference between the EDT and the actual departure time (ADT) of vessels due to various factors such as unexpected port handling inefficiency. This variability complicates the coordination of efficient port operations. Our research aims to address this issue by employing an extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) regression model to predict the VTT, using vessel arrival and departure data at the Hong Kong Port for the year 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. The proposed machine learning approach can provide more accurate predictions on VTT on average compared to the EDT data reported by vessels themselves, with a substantial reduction in both mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) of 23% (from 5.1 h to 3.9 h) and 24% (from 8.0 h to 6.1 h), respectively. These results present a significant leap forward in the predictive capabilities for the VTT and lay the foundation for further research into improving vessel scheduling efficiency, reducing port congestion and enhancing overall port performance.