Strategies for dynamic appointment making by container terminals

We consider a container terminal that has to make appointments with barges dynamically, in real-time, and partly automatic. The challenge for the terminal is to make appointments with only limited knowledge about future arriving barges, and in the view of uncertainty and disturbances, such as uncertain arrival and handling times, as well as cancellations and no-shows. We illustrate this problem using an innovative implementation project which is currently running in the Port of Rotterdam. This project aims to align barge rotations and terminal quay schedules by means of a multi-agent system. In this\ud paper, we take the perspective of a single terminal that will participate in this planning system, and focus on the decision making capabilities of its intelligent agent. We focus on the question how the terminal operator can optimize, on an operational level, the utilization of its quay resources, while making reliable appointments with barges, i.e., with a guaranteed departure time. We explore two approaches: (i) an analytical approach based on the value of having certain intervals within the schedule and (ii) an approach based on sources of exibility that are naturally available to the terminal. We use simulation to get insight in the benefits of these approaches. We conclude that a major increase in utilization degree could be achieved only by deploying the sources of exibility, without harming the waiting time of barges too much

New Concept of Container Allocation at the National Level: Case Study of Export Industry in Thailand

This paper presents container allocation technique of which minimizing the total opportunity loss of an export industry in Thailand. This new allocation concept applies as a strategic management tools at the national level since it is consistent to the characteristics of the container supply chain management in Thailand. The first section of this paper presents the review of facts and problems of container supply chain management. It reveals that containerization system is significant to the international trade as it holds good characteristics of sea transportation. It can transport a lot of products while minimize the damage of goods. Supply chain management of the containerization system presents and shows that there are four main players in managing the container – principal, port, container depot, and customer. After an intensive review of containerization system’s problem, the most common problem that all parties have encountered is an imbalance between demand and supply of container. The well-known solution to the stated problem is relocation of containers between various places using optimization technique, which aims to minimize operation cost. Indeed, those solutions are unable solve the containerization system’s problem in Thailand: lacking their own fleets: having no bargaining power in relocating container between areas as needed. In the present, many of Thai exporters face with losses of sales or profit because they cannot find enough or proper containers to transport their goods to the customer. The authors, therefore, have seen that those problems need to be strategically solved by the government. The limited number of containers must be properly allocated to the exporter with regard to the minimum losses to the economics of the country. The main contributions of this paper are two folds. First, the opportunity losses of the various export industry are indicated when lack of containers, Second, the mathematical model has been formulated using linear programming technique with several constraints, such as, demand, supply, obsolete time, operating cost, lead time etc. The authors hope that the new concept presented in this paper will provide the great contribution for other countries, which face the same problem of Thailand. Keywords: Container Management, Opportunity Loss, Allocation Problem, Optimization, International Trad

Optimization of empty container movements using street-turn: Application to Valencia hinterland

Empty maritime container logistics is one of the most relevant costs for shipping companies. In this paper two mathematical models (based on two different container movement patterns, i.e. with and without street-turns) were defined to optimize land empty container movements among shippers, consignees, terminals and depots, along with minimizing storage costs. One of the proposed optimization models was embedded in a simple Decision Support System (DSS) and then tested with real data, based on the operations in Valencia s (Spain) hinterland. The results obtained confirm the benefits of implementing these kinds of models for the company, and additional experiments assess and quantify the advantage of using the more complex approach that is able to implement street-turn patterns.This research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through Grant DPI2010-16201 and FEDER.Furió, S.; Andrés Romano, C.; Adenso Díaz, B.; Lozano Segura, S. (2013). Optimization of empty container movements using street-turn: Application to Valencia hinterland. Computers and Industrial Engineering. 66(4):909-917. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2013.09.003S90991766

Empty Container Management in the Benelux Waterways

The scientific contribution of this paper is the development of a model for empty container management in the hinterlands of the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam. The objective of the proposed model is to minimize the total operational cost while satisfying the demand for empty containers. This goal is achieved by choosing the most efficient transportation mode between a seaport and its hinterland: road, inland waterways or intermodal transport. Moreover, to fit the real-life operation and management as well as possible, our model also includes container substitution and container leasing options.Peer reviewe

Dynamic approach to solve the daily drayage problem with travel time uncertainty

The intermodal transport chain can become more e cient by means of a good organization of drayage movements. Drayage in intermodal container terminals involves the pick up and delivery of containers at customer locations, and the main objective is normally the assignment of transportation tasks to the di erent vehicles, often with the presence of time windows. This scheduling has traditionally been done once a day and, under these conditions, any unexpected event could cause timetable delays. We propose to use the real-time knowledge about vehicle position to solve this problem, which permanently allows the planner to reassign tasks in case the problem conditions change. This exact knowledge of the position of the vehicles is possible using a geographic positioning system by satellite (GPS, Galileo, Glonass), and the results show that this additional data can be used to dynamically improve the solution

Inventory routing for dynamic waste collection

We consider the problem of collecting waste from sensor equipped underground containers. These sensors enable the use of a dynamic collection policy. The problem, which is known as a reverse inventory routing problem, involves decisions regarding routing and container selection. In more dense networks, the latter becomes more important. To cope with uncertainty in deposit volumes and with fluctuations due to daily and seasonal e ects, we need an anticipatory policy that balances the workload over time. We propose a relatively simple heuristic consisting of several tunable parameters depending on the day of the week. We tune the parameters of this policy using optimal learning techniques combined with simulation. We illustrate our approach using a real life problem instance of a waste collection company, located in The Netherlands, and perform experiments on several other instances. For our case study, we show that costs savings up to 40% are possible by optimizing the parameters

Sea Container Terminals

Due to a rapid growth in world trade and a huge increase in containerized goods, sea container terminals play a vital role in globe-spanning supply chains. Container terminals should be able to handle large ships, with large call sizes within the shortest time possible, and at competitive rates. In response, terminal operators, shipping liners, and port authorities are investing in new technologies to improve container handling infrastructure and operational efficiency. Container terminals face challenging research problems which have received much attention from the academic community. The focus of this paper is to highlight the recent developments in the container terminals, which can be categorized into three areas: (1) innovative container terminal technologies, (2) new OR directions and models for existing research areas, and (3) emerging areas in container terminal research. By choosing this focus, we complement existing reviews on container terminal operations