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

A viral system to optimise the daily drayage problem

The intermodal transport chain can become more efficient by means of a good organisation of the drayage movements. Drayage in intermodal container terminals involves the pick up or delivery of containers at customer locations, and the main objective is normally the assignment of transportation tasks to the different vehicles, often with the presence of time windows. This paper focuses on a new approach to tackle the daily drayage problem by the use of viral system (VS). VS is a novel bio-inspired approach that makes use of a virus-infection biological analogy that is producing very satisfactory results when dealing with complex problems with huge feasibility region.Unión Europea TEC2013-47286-C3-3-

Off-peak truck deliveries at container terminals: the 'Good Night' program in Israel

Purpose – Avoiding truck congestion and peaks in landside activity is one of the challenges to container terminal managers. The spreading of truck arrivals at terminals can be facilitated by widening the opening hours of terminals at the landside. Israel’s Ministry of Transport has instituted the “Good Night Program”, involving monetary incentives for importers and exporters who deliver containers to ports at night. Design/methodology/approach – This paper aims to quantitatively examine the market utility resulting from shifting traffic from daytime to nighttime, and analyzes customer considerations regarding nighttime transportation. Findings – The external utility found in the traffic-economics model is quite similar to the economic incentive given to customers. Therefore, a significant increase of the incentive is not feasible. Originality/value – Furthermore, it seems that an incentive method by itself is not effective enough, and does not motivate customers to act and find creative solutions to the obstacles they face. To achieve a considerable change in nighttime transport to Israeli ports, more effective methods should be examined

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

Concepts, Mechanisms, and Algorithms to Measure the Potential of Container Sharing in Seaport Hinterland Transportation

This thesis analyzes how trucking companies of a hinterland region can improve their routes if shipping companies allow the mutual exchange of their containers. In this case, trucking companies that are assigned by shipping companies cooperate by sharing information regarding which locations empty containers are currently stacked. These containers can then be integrated into a vehicle's route of any operating trucking company in the hinterland. The investigation aims at measuring the quantitative potential of the container sharing idea by means of problem settings illustrating realistic hinterland regions of a seaport. As a first step, the impact of street turns on the transportation costs of a trucking company should be measured. By forbidding or allowing the use of street turns for a single trucking company, the potential of the container sharing idea can be indicated, and the interrelation of empty container movements and transportation costs can be shown. As a further step, the benefit of exchanging empty containers between several trucking companies needs to be analyzed. In doing so, it is possible to investigate the potential and realistic limits of container sharing

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