In the last four decades the container as an essential part of a unit-load-concept has achieved undoubted importance in international sea freight transportation. With ever increasing containerization the number of seaport container terminals and competition among them have become quite remarkable. Operations are nowadays unthinkable without effective and efficient use of information technology as well as appropriate optimization (operations research) methods. In this paper we describe and classify the main logistics processes and operations in container terminals and present a survey of methods for their optimization.

Container terminal operation and operations research — a classification and literature review

A survey of berth allocation and quay crane scheduling problems in container terminals

This paper addresses the problem of determining a dynamic berth assignment to ships in the public berth system. While the public berth system may not be suitable for most container ports in major countries, it is desired for higher cost-effectiveness in Japan's ports. The berth allocation to calling ships is a key factor for efficient public berthing. However, it is not calculated in polynomially-bounded time. To obtain a good solution with considerably small computational effort, we developed a heuristic procedure based on the Lagrangian relaxation of the original problem. We conducted a large amount of computational experiments which showed that the proposed algorithm is adaptable to real world applications.

The Dynamic Berth Allocation Problem for a Container Port

The dynamic berth allocation problem for a container port

The objective of the berth-scheduling problem is to determine the berthing times and positions of containerships in port container terminals. Every vessel requires a specific amount of space in a wharf for a predetermined length of time to unload and load containers. In this study, a mixed-integer-linear-programming (MIP) model was formulated for the berth-scheduling problem. The simulated annealing algorithm was applied to the berth-scheduling problem to find near-optimal solutions. Experimental results showed that the simulated annealing algorithm obtains solutions that are similar to the optimal solutions found by the MIP model.

Berth scheduling by simulated annealing

This study is based on a major container terminal operator in Hong Kong. Container terminals form a link in the transport chain for transhipment and temporary storage of containers. The service time for vessels including waiting time for berthing must be minimal in order to reduce costs for shipping lines. The use of heuristics and computer simulation to measure different allocation strategies is demonstrated. The existing performance measures of allocation are evaluated and prioritized. Three sets of allocation policies are developed to tackle the day-to-day allocation problems with a view to increasing operational efficiency and enhancing customer service levels. Results show that all three proposed allocation policies have substantial improvements over the existing policy.

K. K. Lai

Papers

A study of container berth allocation.