889 research outputs found

    Strategies for dynamic appointment making by container terminals

    Get PDF
    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

    Exact and Heuristic Methods for Integrated Container Terminal Problems

    Get PDF

    Priority Control of Berth Allocation Problem in Container Terminals

    Get PDF
    This paper presents a decision support system for the core problem of berth allocation decision in a container terminal. The allocation of berths to the calling vessels is complex with the fact that different service level requirements are required for different vessels. Terminal managers demand for effective decision support systems that would aid them with the allocation problem considering service priorities. Consequently, this study provides a DSS, built by a dynamic discrete-event simulation model embedded with an optimization tool that determines the priority controls for the berth allocation to the calling vessels. To show the practical application of the DSS, a comprehensive case study from a Turkish container terminal considering the current state and future expansion plans that also provides an indication of the usability aspect of the program on other ports around the world has been conducted. Further experiments are conducted based on data from the Port of Rotterdam. The DSS presented in this study may help port authorities in determining more efficient allocation decisions within a container terminal

    Optimization in container liner shipping

    Get PDF
    We will give an overview of several decision problem encountered in liner shipping. We will cover problems on the strategic, tactical and operational planning levels as well as problems that can be considered at two planning levels simultaneously. Furthermore, we will shortly discuss some related problems in terminals, geographical bottlenecks for container ships and provide an overview of operations research methods used in liner shipping problems. Thereafter, the decision problems will be illustrated using a case study for six Indonesian ports

    Review of fuzzy techniques in maritime shipping operations

    Get PDF

    Optimal container routing in liner shipping networks considering repacking 20 ft containers into 40 ft containers

    Get PDF
    © 2017 Shuaian Wang et al. The volume of a 40 ft container is twice as large as that of a 20 ft container. However, the handling cost (loading, unloading, and transshipment) of a 40 ft container is much lower than twice the corresponding handling cost of two 20 ft containers. Enlightened by this observation, we propose a novel container routing with repacking problem in liner shipping, where two 20 ft containers can be repacked to a 40 ft container in order to reduce the handling cost. We develop a mixed-integer linear programming model that formulates the routing decisions and the repacking decisions in a holistic manner. An illustrative example is reported to demonstrate the applicability of the model. Results show that the benefit of repacking is the most significant when containers are transshipped several times

    Sequence-Based Simulation-Optimization Framework With Application to Port Operations at Multimodal Container Terminals

    Get PDF
    It is evident in previous works that operations research and mathematical algorithms can provide optimal or near-optimal solutions, whereas simulation models can aid in predicting and studying the behavior of systems over time and monitor performance under stochastic and uncertain circumstances. Given the intensive computational effort that simulation optimization methods impose, especially for large and complex systems like container terminals, a favorable approach is to reduce the search space to decrease the amount of computation. A maritime port can consist of multiple terminals with specific functionalities and specialized equipment. A container terminal is one of several facilities in a port that involves numerous resources and entities. It is also where containers are stored and transported, making the container terminal a complex system. Problems such as berth allocation, quay and yard crane scheduling and assignment, storage yard layout configuration, container re-handling, customs and security, and risk analysis become particularly challenging. Discrete-event simulation (DES) models are typically developed for complex and stochastic systems such as container terminals to study their behavior under different scenarios and circumstances. Simulation-optimization methods have emerged as an approach to find optimal values for input variables that maximize certain output metric(s) of the simulation. Various traditional and nontraditional approaches of simulation-optimization continue to be used to aid in decision making. In this dissertation, a novel framework for simulation-optimization is developed, implemented, and validated to study the influence of using a sequence (ordering) of decision variables (resource levels) for simulation-based optimization in resource allocation problems. This approach aims to reduce the computational effort of optimizing large simulations by breaking the simulation-optimization problem into stages. Since container terminals are complex stochastic systems consisting of different areas with detailed and critical functions that may affect the output, a platform that accurately simulates such a system can be of significant analytical benefit. To implement and validate the developed framework, a large-scale complex container terminal discrete-event simulation model was developed and validated based on a real system and then used as a testing platform for various hypothesized algorithms studied in this work

    Barge Prioritization, Assignment, and Scheduling During Inland Waterway Disruption Responses

    Get PDF
    Inland waterways face natural and man-made disruptions that may affect navigation and infrastructure operations leading to barge traffic disruptions and economic losses. This dissertation investigates inland waterway disruption responses to intelligently redirect disrupted barges to inland terminals and prioritize offloading while minimizing total cargo value loss. This problem is known in the literature as the cargo prioritization and terminal allocation problem (CPTAP). A previous study formulated the CPTAP as a non-linear integer programming (NLIP) model solved with a genetic algorithm (GA) approach. This dissertation contributes three new and improved approaches to solve the CPTAP. The first approach is a decomposition based sequential heuristic (DBSH) that reduces the time to obtain a response solution by decomposing the CPTAP into separate cargo prioritization, assignment, and scheduling subproblems. The DBSH integrates the Analytic Hierarchy Process and linear programming to prioritize cargo and allocate barges to terminals. Our findings show that compared to the GA approach, the DBSH is more suited to solve large sized decision problems resulting in similar or reduced cargo value loss and drastically improved computational time. The second approach formulates CPTAP as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model improved through the addition of valid inequalities (MILP\u27). Due to the complexity of the NLIP, the GA results were validated only for small size instances. This dissertation fills this gap by using the lower bounds of the MILP\u27 model to validate the quality of all prior GA solutions. In addition, a comparison of the MILP\u27 and GA solutions for several real world scenarios show that the MILP\u27 formulation outperforms the NLIP model solved with the GA approach by reducing the total cargo value loss objective. The third approach reformulates the MILP model via Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition and develops an exact method based on branch-and-price technique to solve the model. Previous approaches obtained optimal solutions for instances of the CPTAP that consist of up to five terminals and nine barges. The main contribution of this new approach is the ability to obtain optimal solutions of larger CPTAP instances involving up to ten terminals and thirty barges in reasonable computational time

    The synergistic effect of operational research and big data analytics in greening container terminal operations: a review and future directions

    Get PDF
    Container Terminals (CTs) are continuously presented with highly interrelated, complex, and uncertain planning tasks. The ever-increasing intensity of operations at CTs in recent years has also resulted in increasing environmental concerns, and they are experiencing an unprecedented pressure to lower their emissions. Operational Research (OR), as a key player in the optimisation of the complex decision problems that arise from the quay and land side operations at CTs, has been therefore presented with new challenges and opportunities to incorporate environmental considerations into decision making and better utilise the ‘big data’ that is continuously generated from the never-stopping operations at CTs. The state-of-the-art literature on OR's incorporation of environmental considerations and its interplay with Big Data Analytics (BDA) is, however, still very much underdeveloped, fragmented, and divergent, and a guiding framework is completely missing. This paper presents a review of the most relevant developments in the field and sheds light on promising research opportunities for the better exploitation of the synergistic effect of the two disciplines in addressing CT operational problems, while incorporating uncertainty and environmental concerns efficiently. The paper finds that while OR has thus far contributed to improving the environmental performance of CTs (rather implicitly), this can be much further stepped up with more explicit incorporation of environmental considerations and better exploitation of BDA predictive modelling capabilities. New interdisciplinary research at the intersection of conventional CT optimisation problems, energy management and sizing, and net-zero technology and energy vectors adoption is also presented as a prominent line of future research
    corecore