A Scheduling Method For Cranes In A Container Yard With Inter-Crane Interference

Coupled with increased demand for speed to market, the container terminal (CT) operator faces constant pressure to reduce turnaround time and increase flow efficiency. Hence, CT operators need better and efficient computational tools which can de-bottleneck a CT’s container flow and increase container throughput. CT operations are often bottlenecked by slow YC (yard crane) movements. PM queues in front of the YCs are common. Hence, efficient YC scheduling to reduce the PM waiting time is critical in increasing a CT’s throughput.We develop an efficient model for YC scheduling by taking into account realistic operational constraints such as inter-crane interference, fixed YC separation distances and simultaneous container storage/retrievals. Among them, only inter-crane interference has ever been considered in the literature. The model requires far fewer integer variables than the literature by using bi-index decision variables. Finally, summarizes the main results of this article and point out the deficiencies of this study and future research directions. The proposed formulations and algorithms can be extended to other problems with time windows and space constraints.The results show that the genetic algorithm using Matlab language in solving the math model can get a reasonable scheduling plan, so as to reduce the total delay time of container storage/retrievals and to improve the yard’s operation efficiency.