Scheduling And Optimization Of Multiple Resources In A Container Terminal

Maritime container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles. It provides services such as cargo transit, temporary storage, distribution, multimodal transport hub and so on. So it plays an important role in international trade. With the development of Shanghai International Shipping Center, maritime transportation in shanghai port has been increasedfastly. But In the meantime, shanghai port is trapped in the contradiction between enormous business and limited resources. To resolve this problem, optimization of storage allocation and yard crane scheduling is researched. The collaborative optimization of storage allocation and yard crane scheduling is proposed followed by researches on each sub- problem.Based on the rolling plan, a two-stage-algorithm for storage allocation of outbound containers (ASTA) is proposed. In the first stage, a mixed integer programming model isestablishedto balance container numbers in different blocks and reduce transportation distance between the berth area and the storage area. In the second stage, a Markovdecision model and a heuristic algorithm of storage allocation are developed.The performance of heuristic algorithm is evaluated by comparison with Markovs Decision, random allocation and sequence allocation.To schedule the yard cranes effectively, a Constrained Programing model is established and a tabu search algorithm (TSA)is developed. These two methods are proved to be correct by small scale numerical example and to be efficient to reduce invalid operations and shorten workspans by large scale numerical example.For the close relationship between storage allocation and yard crane scheduling, a two-stagecollaborative optimization are proposed. In the first stage, it optimizes the bay allocation for outbound containers and yard crane assignment; in the second stage, it optimizes storage allocation within a bay for outbound containers and yard crane schedule. Computationalexperiments demonstrate that the proposed collaborative optimization can reducerehandle operations effectively.Multiple resource scheduling and optimization methods proposed in this paper offers great theoretical and practical significance in improving the efficiency of maritime terminal resources.It also provides reference to production scheduling in other types of manufactures.