In response to the increasing operational complexity of inland waterway systems, this study develops a multi-objective optimization framework for ship lock scheduling under energy-consumption and resource constraints. The model evaluates five operational dimensions, namely average waiting time, lock utilization, total energy consumption, arrival rescheduling rate, and berth-overcapacity penalty. Based on historical lockage records from the Da Teng Gorge Ship Lock Hub, four representative multi-objective algorithms—NSGA-II, NSGA-III, MOEA/D, and SPEA-II—are comparatively examined. The revised analysis emphasizes trade-off performance rather than unsupported absolute dominance claims: NSGA-III shows the most balanced overall behavior on the preserved empirical instance, MOEA/D remains competitive in time-sensitive scenarios, and SPEA-II performs well in some overcapacity-control settings. To improve methodological transparency, the paper clarifies the physical meaning and source of major parameters, distinguishes measured quantities from scenario settings, and reports carbon impact as a derived indicator linked to energy consumption. These revisions provide a more transparent and practically interpretable basis for intelligent ship lock scheduling under congestion, energy, and resource constraints.
Xu et al. (2026) studied this question.