Research On The Simulation And Optimization Of The Inland Functional Areas’ Layout In Container Terminal

With the rapid development of the global transportation business of container, the demand of container handling has brought a great challenge to port operator. As a developing country, China’s freight costs have remained stubbornly high, and an important source of this phenomena is the transport costs which arise in logistics nodes. Port is a most important transit node between shipping and inland transport. It is one of the major research trends to reduce the cost of container terminal operation by improving the port handling efficiency in the field of container port. Also it conforms to the development trend of low-carbon and high efficiency of modern container port.Inland functional areas in container terminal are major areas among the container handling zone, and their layout has a direct effect on the whole terminal handling efficiency. It is very important to obtain a high handling efficiency by planning a reasonable terminal layout scheme of the functional areas in a limited land region. We chose the inland functional areas of the whole terminal as the subject in this paper, and analyzed the influence on terminal handling efficiency of their layout and the handling system. It can provide a theoretical basis to propose the optimization model.On the basis of comprehensive analysis of the relevant literature, we determined the layout scheme set of inland functional areas at the beginning. Then we got a limited number of good schemes by the advice of experts, and it formed a typical scheme set. After analyzing the influence on terminal handling efficiency of its layout, we built the evaluation model of the layout of inland functional areas by choosing the indicators which can reflect the impact of various factors on handling efficiency. Based on the container terminal handling processes, we built a simulation model by using simulation technology, and verified its validity. This model can be used to obtain the output value associated with the indicators. We can determine the weight by the objective weighting method after processing the initial value of the indicators. Then the layout schemes of inland functional areas of container terminal can be evaluated to obtain the optimal one.We took a northern container terminal in building for example, and input the simulation parameters. After that, we can get the value of the indicators of each scheme. By using the constructed evaluation model that was proposed above, we can calculate evaluation result vector which can be used to determine the optimal layout scheme among the scheme set. By analyzing the results obtained in the simulation model, we determined the influence of various layout scheme on the indicators.Based on the determined scheme set, evaluation model and simulation model, this paper proposed an optimization model of the inland functional areas’ layout in container terminal. And then we demonstrated the feasibility of the model with an example. In a word, it can provide a theoretical basis for engineering practice.