Container Terminal Operator Optimization Model And Algorithm

With the development of container transportation, the throughout of container terminals has increased in recent years. How to quickly load and unload containers with low cost turns to be one of the most urgent problems needed to be solved in container terminals.This paper focuses on efficiency and cost problem in operation management of container terminals. After introducing and analyzing the process in container terminals, this paper presents some optimization methods for arranging loading sequence of containers and dispatching container trucks.The research contribution of this paper lies in two aspects:(1) arranging loading sequence of containersArranging loading sequence of containers is a very complex process, which needs consider many factors, such as positions of cranes and vehicles. Based on the practical situation in container terminals, a real time model is built in chapter 3. The purpose of the model is to minimize the cost while satisfying the requirement of loading containers. After analyzing the model, this paper provides an algorithm to get the optimum and a more efficiency approximate algorithm. Otherwise, a similar analysis is made in the situation of loading containers with the prior requirement.(2) dispatching container trucksContainer trucks are important vehicles in container terminals. The problem of dispatching container trucks is studied in chapter 4. With the same purpose of minimizing transportation cost, two models are built. One belongs to 0-1 programming, and another is based on graph theory. A heuristic algorithm is used to settle the latter model. Then it is proved that the two models are equivalent.