Berth allocation planning in Seville inland port by simulation and optimisation

We study the problems associated with allocating berths for containerships in the port of Seville. It is the only inland port in Spain and it is located on the Guadalquivir River. This paper addresses the berth allocation planning problems using simulation and optimisation with Arena software. We propose a mathematical model and develop a heuristic procedure based on genetic algorithm to solve non-linear problems. Allocation planning aims to minimise the total service time for each ship and considers a first-come-first-served allocation strategy. We conduct a large amount of computational experiments which show that the proposed model improves the current berth management strategy

Containership Load Planning with Crane Operations

Since the start of the containerization revolution in 1950's, not only the TEU capacity of the vessels has been increasing constantly, but also the number of fully cellular container ships has expanded substantially. Because of the tense competition among ports in recent years, improving the operational efficiency of ports has become an important issue in containership operations. Arrangement of containers both within the container terminal and on the containership play an important role in determining the berthing time. The berthing time of a containership is mainly composed of the unloading and loading time of containers. Containers in a containership are stored in stacks, making a container directly accessible only if it is on the top of one stack. The task of determining a good container arrangement to minimize the number of re-handlings while maintaining the ship's stability over several ports is called stowage planning, which is an everyday problem solved by ship planners. The horizontal distribution of the containers over the bays affects crane utilization and overall ship berthing time. In order to increase the terminal productivity and reduce the turnaround time, the stowage planning must conform to the berth design. Given the configuration of berths and cranes at each visiting port, the stowage planning must take into account the utilization of quay cranes as well as the reduction of unnecessary shifts to minimize the total time at all ports over the voyage. This dissertation introduces an optimization model to solve the stowage planning problem with crane utilization considerations. The optimization model covers a wide range of operational and structural constraints for containership load planning. In order to solve real-size problems, a meta-heuristic approach based on genetic algorithms is designed and implemented which embeds a crane split approximation routine. The genetic encoding is ultra-compact and represents grouping, sorting and assignment strategies that might be applied to form the stowage pattern. The evaluation procedure accounts for technical specification of the cranes as well as the crane split. Numerical results show that timely solution for ultra large size containerships can be obtained under different scenarios

Models and Solutions Algorithms for Improving Operations in Marine Transportation

International seaborne trade rose significantly during the past decades. This created the need to improve efficiency of liner shipping services and marine container terminal operations to meet the growing demand. The objective of this dissertation is to develop simulation and mathematical models that may enhance operations of liner shipping services and marine container terminals, taking into account the main goals of liner shipping companies (e.g., reduce fuel consumption and vessel emissions, ensure on-time arrival to each port of call, provide vessel scheduling strategies that capture sailing time variability, consider variable port handling times, increase profit, etc.) and terminal operators (e.g., decrease turnaround time of vessels, improve terminal productivity without significant capital investments, reduce possible vessel delays and associated penalties, ensure fast recovery in case of natural and man-made disasters, make the terminal competitive, maximize revenues, etc.). This dissertation proposes and models two alternatives for improving operations of marine container terminals: 1) a floaterm concept and 2) a new contractual agreement between terminal operators. The main difference between floaterm and conventional marine container terminals is that in the former case some of import and/or transshipment containers are handled by off-shore quay cranes and placed on container barges, which are further towed by push boats to assigned feeder vessels or floating yard. According to the new collaborative agreement, a dedicated marine container terminal operator can divert some of its vessels for the service at a multi-user terminal during specific time windows. Another part of dissertation focuses on enhancing operations of liner shipping services by introducing the following: 1) a new collaborative agreement between a liner shipping company and terminal operators and 2) a new framework for modeling uncertainty in liner shipping. A new collaborative mechanism assumes that each terminal operator is able to offer a set of handling rates to a liner shipping company, which may result in a substantial total route service cost reduction. The suggested framework for modeling uncertainty is expected to assist liner shipping companies in designing robust vessel schedules

Dynamic discrete berth allocation in container terminals under four performance measures

In this paper we develop new models for the dynamic discrete berth allocation problem under four performance measures (PM). The models allow for both dynamic berth availability and dynamic arrival of vessels within the planning time horizon. The new formulation allows the four models to be compared in terms of both model complexities and solutions. The models were implemented using CPLEX. The paper also proposed four heuristics under one framework for solving large instances of the problem. The study shows that the choice of PM to optimise is very crucial as different optimised PMs lead to different degrees of satisfactions or terminal efficiency

The Tactical Berth Allocation Problem (TBAP) with quay crane assignment and transshipment-related quadratic yard costs

International sea-freight container transport has grown dramatically over the last years and container terminals play nowadays a key-role in the global shipping network. Increasing competition and competitiveness among terminals require more and more efficiency in container handling operations, both in the quayside and the landside, in order to better utilize limited resources (such as cranes, trucks, berths, storage space, etc.) as well as minimize ship's turnaround time. Operations research methods are therefore worth being use for the optimization of terminal operations. We take into account two decision problems which are usually solved hierarchically by terminal planners: the Berth Allocation Problem (BAP), which consists of assigning and scheduling incoming ships to berthing positions, and the Quay Crane Assignment Problem (QCAP), which assigns to incoming ships a certain QC profile (i.e. number of quay cranes per working shift). These two problems are indeed strictly correlated: the QC profile assigned to the incoming ships affects their handling time and has thus an impact on the berth allocation. In this work, we aim to combine BAP with QCAP and analyze the resulting new integrated problem from the point of view of a transshipment terminal. We solve this problem at the tactical decision level, with the intent of supporting the terminal in its negotiation process with shipping lines, as the number of quay cranes is usually bounded by contracts which are discussed months in advance. Devised analytic tools and quantitative methods allow terminal managers to assign the right value to the QC profiles proposed to shipping lines, considering their impact on the terminal productivity. In addition to profile evaluation, the combined solution of these two problems optimizes the utilization of terminal resources. Alternative objectives are used for this purpose, such as the minimization of total distance covered to move containers, the minimization of ships turnaround time, etc. Starting from a collaboration with the transshipment terminal of Gioia Tauro in Italy, one of the busiest in Europe, we propose a new model for the Tactical Berth Allocation Problem (TBAP) with Quay Crane Assignment, which has been validated on real-world instances provided by the terminal, taking into account a time horizon up to one month. The objective function aims, on the one hand, to maximize the total value of chosen QC profiles and, on the other hand, to minimize the housekeeping costs caused by transshipment flows between ships. Preliminary results obtained through commercial software will be presented and further methodological approaches to the problem, such as decomposition techniques, will be outlined

Modeling and Solving the Tactical Berth Allocation Problem

In this paper we integrate at the tactical level two decision problems arising in container terminals: the berth allocation problem, which consists of assigning and scheduling incoming ships to berthing positions, and the quay crane assignment problem, which assigns to incoming ships a certain QC profile (i.e. number of quay cranes per working shift). We present two formulations: a mixed integer quadratic program and a linearization which reduces to a mixed integer linear program. The objective function aims, on the one hand, to maximize the total value of chosen QC profiles and, on the other hand, to minimize the housekeeping costs generated by transshipment flows between ships. To solve the problem we developed a heuristic algorithm which combines tabu search methods and mathematical programming techniques. Computational results on instances based on real data are presented and compared to those obtained through a commercial solver

Models and new methods for the quayside operations in port container terminals.

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Fuzzy containers allocation problem in maritime terminal

Containers allocation in terminals has attracted lots of research works due to practical & theoretical importance in transportation literature. In this paper, we developed a fuzzy mathematical programming model for solving problem of allocating the containers in terminal area. The objective is minimizing the total distance traversed by the containers from the ship to the terminal area they are assigned. Fuzzy set concepts are used to treat imprecision regarding the distances between berth and terminals area, number of containers in an arrived ship and estimation of available area in each terminal at a port. We proposed two types of models for optimistic and pessimistic situations. The proposed models have been coded in LINGO8.0 solver and a numerical example has been solved for illustration purpose. The full analysis of the proposed models can cause an optimum allocation of containers of several ships to different terminals of berths in fuzzy environment.Peer Reviewe

Optimization at Container Terminals: Status, Trends and Perspectives (revised version)

International sea-freight container transportation has grown dramatically over the last years and container terminals represent nowadays a key actor in the global shipping network. Terminal managers have to face with an increasing competitiveness among terminals, which require more and more efficiency in container operations both along the quayside and within the yard: the objective is usually to minimize ships turnaround time, one of the main indicators of the terminal performance for the shipping companies. Moreover, the minimization of operational costs directly entails the achievement of competitive terminal fares, thus increasing the attractiveness for new customers. Operations research methods and techniques are therefore worth being used in optimizing terminal operations. In this work, we firstly give an overview of decision problems which arise in the management of a container terminal (e.g. berth allocation, quay crane scheduling, storage policies and strategies, transfer operations, ship stowage planning) and provide a review of recent papers in the OR literature. Then, starting from a collaboration with some of the busiest ports in Europe, we identify some critical issues: in particular, we discuss the impact that gate and transshipment operations have on the yard. We also focus on competition and cooperation issues among port market players and decision makers. Finally, we conclude by suggesting possible research tracks and open issues