A shipping line stowage-planning procedure in the presence of hazardous containers

This work addresses the stowage-planning problem for containerships, known as the Master Bay Plan problem (MBPP), in the presence of hazardous containers. A novel procedure, based on the principles included in the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code for stowing containers in liner services is presented. Further, shipping alliances are considered. Our aim is to assist the shipping line coordinator (SLC) to optimize the available space assigned to each alliance member. This is possible thanks to the proposed procedure that finds stowage solutions for ships with different structures, capacity and available sections for hazardous containers, and for companies having different stowage strategies. Our procedure can be implemented in a tool, able to verify the stowage constraints and the segregation rules in case of hazardous cargo. Two simple real-life multi-port stowage plans involving hazardous containers are presented and analysed to illustrate the proposed procedure

Transport of dangerous goods by sea

Within maritime transport dangerous goods count for about 50%. According to the general name, they present different types of risk and, therefore, dangers to life of all kinds. This dissertation is a, study of some aspects of the transport of dangerous goods by sea. The classification criteria are examined since classification is the gateway through which certain goods enter into a special domain governed by specific rules. As the sea mode of transport handles very large quantities of dangerous goods and, sometimes, for long periods of time, the safety requirements for ships are analyzed as to ensure the safe movement of such goods. Within the transportation chain the port is, probably, the most sensitive link. The aspects of entry procedures, storage and segregation, checking, emergency response, and national regulation for port areas are examined. To meet the requirements for emergency response, guidelines for contingency planning are given. All operations of the management of dangerous goods are carried out by people. Safety relies largely on them. Special attention is paid to the training of the people involved and the ways to achieve good results are shown. The final chapter is intended as a suggestion as to how the national regulations should be designed and what they should contain. The necessity to harmonize regulations pertaining to different modes of transport is emphasized in the conclusions

Heuristic container placement algorithms

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Computer Engineering, Izmir, 2003Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 56-58)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishviii, 72 leavesWith the growth of transportation over sea; defining transportation processes in a better way and finding ways to make transportation processes more effective have become one of the most important research areas of today. Especially in the last quartet of the previous decade, the computers had become much powerful tools with their impressive amount of data processing cababilites. It was imminent that computers had begun taking serious roles in the system development studies. As a result; constructing models for the processes in container terminals and processing the data with the computers create opportunities for the automation of various processes in container terminals. The final step of these studies is the full automation of terminal activities with software packages that combine various functions focused on various processes in a single system.This study is about a project that had been made for a container terminal owned by a special company. During this study; there had been discussions with experts about the subject, and container handling processes in the terminal had been analyzed in order to define the main structure of the yard management software to be created.This study focuses on the container handling activities over the yard space so as to create a basis for a computer system that will take part in the decisions during the container operations. Object oriented analysis and design methods are used for the definition of the system that will help the decisions in the yard operations. The optimization methodology that will be the core of the container placement decisions is based on using different placement patterns and placement algorithms for different conditions. These placement patterns and algorithms are constructed due to the container handling machinery that was being used in the terminal that this study has been made for