Coordinated Scheduling Of Berth-Truck-Block In Container Terminals Under Containers Scattered Stacking

Because of the growing quantity of ports, the competition of container terminals becomes more and more fierce. In order to attract more clients, port operators have to find a way to enlarge the terminal production scale, improve port infrastructure, introduce advanced science and management technology, as well as change the original operation mode. The existing container terminals have had a certain scale of production, basic facilities, relatively mature management technology, so that the key factor to enhance the core competitiveness of container terminals is to change the original operation mode. In order to attract more clients and improve handling operation efficiency of export containers and transit containers, many large ports adopt the policy of export container random arrival and transit container random stacking, which have lead to the scattered stacking of containers in the front yard of terminals. According to the situation, it has been very important for container terminal coordination and decision-makings to conduct coordinated scheduling of berth allocation, truck routing and block choice, aiming to improve the efficiency, reduce the empty loading rate and decrease the cost. Therefore, the coordinated scheduling problem of multiple key links in container terminal handling operation system is of great academic value and practical significance in consideration of the the scattered stacking of containers in terminals.According to that berth allocation, truck route and block choice are three key links which play the role of point, line, point in container terminal handling operation system, and in allusion to the influence of export containers under random arrival and transit containers scattered stacking on berth allocation, truck routing and block choice in container terminals, as well as their complex relations in terminal handling operation system, this paper proposes a coordinated scheduling problem of berth-truck-block. With the consideration of different operating methods to containers on decks and in holds of ships, the problem was formulated as a mixed integer programming model with objective of minimizing trucks’total traveling distance and empty loading rate, allocating berth and block for containers as decision variables. Then a genetic algorithm based on three-layer chromosome in gene expression was developed to simultaneously optimize the problem. Through numerical experiments, results show that the optimized trucks’total traveling distance is reduced by 12.25% in comparison with the one of focused storage scenario for transit containers and export containers under together arrival, and the empty loading rate of trucks reduces to 18.83%, which illustrates the validity of the model and the algorithm, and can significantly improve terminal handling operation efficiency. The coordinated scheduling of berth-truck-block in this paper provides a more insightful approach to simultaneous optimization of berth allocation, truck routing and block choice under containers scattered stacking.