Optimization at Container Terminals

Status, Trends and Perspectives

Ilaria Vacca, Michel Bierlaire, Matteo Salani Transport and Mobility Laboratory Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

7th Swiss Transport Research Conference September 14, 2007

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Outline
Introduction Planning levels Terminal operations Yard optimization Issues in yard management Transshipment: a new approach Conclusions

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Introduction
Growth of container sea-freight transportation. Competition among terminals in terms of:

- Service (ships turnaround time); - Productivity (TEUs per year).

Issues: trafc, congestion and capacity limits. OR techniques can improve the efciency of terminal operations.

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Planning Levels at Container Terminals

Strategic Level
Long-term decisions regarding: - Resources (terminals equipment, infrastructure, layout etc.); - Strategic alliances with shipping companies and other terminals.

Tactical Level
Mid-term and short-term decisions regarding: - Size of the equipment eet; - Storage policies for containers; - Berth and yard templates.

Operational Level
Daily and real-time decisions regarding all the terminal operations.

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Terminal Overview

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Terminal Operations
Ship-to-Shore
Berth Allocation; Quay Cranes Scheduling; Ship Loading Plan.

Transfer
Quay-Yard; Yard-Yard; Yard-Gate.

Storage
Yard Management (Block and Bay Allocation); Yard Crane Deployment

Delivery and Receipt

Gate management; Interface with trains and trucks.

In addition to the traditional ow: transshipment containers.

Vis and de Koster (2003); Steenken et al. (2004); Henesey (2006).

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Yard Overview
The yard serves as a buffer for loading, unloading and transshipping containers. The yard is separated into blocks. The position of the container inside a block is identied by bay, row and tier.

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Yard Optimization

Storage policies for groups of containers at block and bay level, in order to:
- balance the workload among blocks; - minimize the total distance covered to shift containers from quay to yard. de Castilho and Daganzo (1993); Kim et al. (2000); Kim and Park (2003); Zhang et al. (2003); Kim and Hong (2006); Kang et al. (2006); Lee et al. (2006).

Re-marshalling of containers according the ship loading plan, in order to:

- speed-up loading operations and thus minimize ships turnaround time. Kim and Bae (1998); Lee and Hsu (2007).

Yard cranes deployment (allocation of cranes among blocks, routing and

scheduling of operations), in order to: - minimize the completion time of jobs. Kim and Kim (1997); Linn et al. (2003); Zhang et al. (2002); Kim et al. (2003); Ng and Mak (2005); Ng (2005); Kim et al. (2006); Jung and Kim (2006).

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Issues in Yard Management

The yard is usually the bottleneck of the terminal. Trafc, congestion and capacity issues originate from here. Main issue: the schedule of the outgoing ow is unknown to the terminal.
Import/export terminals: yard management is strictly connected to gate operations (trucks). Transshipment terminals: yard management is strictly connected to mother vessels and feeders.

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Gate Issues
An import/export terminal: port of Antwerp, Belgium.

Issues:
unknown dwell time; congestion and queues.

Possible solutions:
Vehicle Booking System (VBS): Southampton, 2005; Pricing policies (soft time windows; dwell time).

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Transshipment: An Overview
A transshipment terminal: port of Gioia Tauro, Italy.

Containers are exchanged between mother vessels and feeders. Market players: the terminal interacts with big shipping companies and feeders. Peculiarities of the transshipment ow:
- Arrival and departure positions and times can be known in advance; - Concurrency of loading and unloading operations.

Denition of new transshipment-related problems:

- Service Allocation Problem (Cordeau et al., 2007); - Group Allocation Problem (Moccia and Astorino, 2007); - Short Sea Shipping: Barge Rotation Planning (Douma et al., 2007).

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Transshipment: A New Approach

We introduce:
Interactions of the terminal with the other market players:
- Negotiation between terminal and feeders on the arrival time.

Integration of berth and yard planning:

- Simultaneous assignment of berths and blocks in the yard to the feeders.

Research plan on 2 levels: 1. Optimization

We assume that the terminal can decide the schedule of feeders.

2. Negotiation
We aim to support the terminal in its negotiation with ad-hoc pricing policies.

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Transshipment: A New Approach

Optimization framework: 1. Berth & Block Allocation Problem (BBAP):
- Minimize the total distance quay-yard; - Balance workload among yard blocks.

2. Scheduling of feeders:
- Minimize congestion in yard blocks.

We search for a global optimal solution minimizing the objectives. Congestion is minimized given the optimal BBAP. A branching strategy explores Pareto-optimal solutions of BBAP.

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Conclusions
Focus on yard management and its interactions with:

- gate operations; - transshipment ow.

A new approach in the optimization of transshipment operations:

- combined assignment of berths and blocks to feeders; - scheduling of feeders.

Pricing policies to support the terminal in the negotiation with feeders.

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References
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Kim, K.-H. and Bae, J. (1998). Re-marshaling export containers in port container terminals, Computers and Industrial Engineering 35: 655658. Kim, K.-H. and Hong, G.-P. (2006). A heuristic rule for relocating blocks, Computers and Operations Research 33: 940 954. Kim, K.-H., Lee, K. and Hwang, H. (2003). Sequencing delivery and receiving operations for yard cranes in port container terminals, International Journal of Production Economics 84: 283292. Kim, K.-H., Lee, S.-J., Park, Y.-M., Yang, C. and Bae, J. (2006). Dispatching yard cranes in port container terminals, TRB Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. Kim, K.-H. and Park, Y.-M. (2003). A note on a dynamic space-allocation method for outbound containers, European Journal of Operational Research 148: 92101. Kim, K.-H., Park, Y.-M. and Ryu, K. (2000). Deriving decision rules to locate export containers in container yards, European Journal of Operational Research 124: 89101. Kim, K.-Y. and Kim, K.-H. (1997). A routing algorithm for a single transfer crane to load export containers onto a containership, Computers and Industrial Engineering 33: 673 676. 14-2

Lee, L., Chew, E., Tan, K. and Han, Y. (2006). An optimization model for storage yard management in transshipment hubs, OR Spectrum 28: 539561. Lee, Y. and Hsu, N.-Y. (2007). An optimization model for the container pre-marshalling problem, Computers and Operations Research 34: 32953313. Linn, R., Liu, J., Wan, Y.-W., Zhang, C. and Murty, K. (2003). Rubber tired gantry crane deployment for container yard operation, Computers and Industrial Engineering 45: 429 442. Moccia, L. and Astorino, A. (2007). The group allocation problem in a transshipment container terminal. Ng, W. (2005). Crane scheduling in container yards with intercrane interference, European Journal of Operational Research 164: 6478. Ng, W. and Mak, K. (2005). Yard crane scheduling in port container terminals, Applied Mathematical Modelling 29: 263 276. Steenken, D., Voss, S. and Stahlbock, R. (2004). Container terminal operation and operations research - a classication and literature review, OR Spectrum 26: 349.

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Vis, I. and de Koster, R. (2003). Transshipment of containers at a container terminal: An overview, European Journal of Operational Research 147: 116. Zhang, C., Liu, J., Wan, Y.-W., Murty, K. and Linn, R. (2003). Storage space allocation in container terminals, Transportation Research Part B 37: 883903. Zhang, C., Wan, Y.-W., Liu, J. and Linn, R. (2002). Dynamic crane deployment in container storage yards, Transportation Research Part B 36: 537555.

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