Dry bulk terminal operations: A critical review of models and optimization methods

Dry bulk terminals (DBTs) are critical interfaces that facilitate the transfer of large volumes of bulk commodities from natural sources to the global economy. Efficient operations at these terminals enhance local industry competitiveness, optimize regional trade balances, and contribute significantly to global economic growth. With the expansion of dry bulk trade and the rising demand for more efficient, resilient, and environmentally sustainable operations, traditional human-reliant decision-making processes are increasingly being supplanted by automated and optimized systems. However, understanding of DBT operations lags behind that of container terminals, which garnered full scholarly attention much earlier. This study provides the first comprehensive review of the literature on DBT operations and proposes future research directions to close this gap. We focus on DBTs’ unique features related to facility layout and operational flow, supply chain integration, and environmental aspects such as dust pollution and energy consumption. We thoroughly analyze the operational features, assumptions, optimization objectives, and problem modeling in the literature to reveal the progress, focal points, and limitations of relevant studies. This paper identifies key drivers of current research trends and outlines several critical future research directions essential for the development of DBTs, including pollution-free and resource-efficient operations, optimization under uncertainties, emerging technology-facilitated operations, and operations coordination in dry bulk transportation networks. This review should help researchers and practitioners in the field of ports and shipping systematically and comprehensively understand the current status of and key issues in the development of DBTs.