Optimizing Allocation Of Space Resources Of Railway Container Terminal Considering Stowage Plan

The effective management and the scheduling optimization of space resources for container yard are the key factors for increasing the operational efficiency of containers.Although the optimization has no direct influence on the economic benefits,it cannot only reduce operating time of containers in the yard space and enhance the core competence of container terminal but also lay a good foundation for improving the economic benefits in the container terminal.This paper takes the rail-water intermodal transport in container terminal as the supporter,takes the space resources in the container yard for research object.In view of determining the number of containers distributed to various blocks and slot optimal allocation in each stack in container yard,the piling strategy is proposed considering the stowage plan.To obtain an efficient and reasonable solution for slot allocation in rail-water container terminals,the main contents are as follows:(1)Analysis on the optimization of the space resources for rail-water intermodal transport terminal.By scooping the task area for containers and analysing the operation procedure for containers in rail-water intermodal transport terminal,this paper presented evaluating indicator for space resources of container yard,namely,the utilization of space resources,the balance degree of space resources,the total container pilling time in the yard.On the basis of these results,this paper addressed the different pilling strategy according to the number of containers.Then which patterns to choose is given during the planning horizon,when it comes to the operating efficiency.(2)Research on the optimization of space allocation.A space allocation model based on time and space is built,whose objective is to minimize the number of stack when the containers are to pile onto yard space.Taking into consideration that containers to the same vessel are usually stored together at an area which is called sub-block to facilitate the loading process.This paper determined the number of containers distributed to various blocks.The size of sub-block is determined by the number of containers.The subject can be presented from two aspects,namely,time and space.The sub-block can be shared by several different vessels as long as their containers do not occupy the space at the same time.Then the Tabu search algorithm is proposed to solve this problem.(3)Study on the slot optimal allocation.A slot allocation model based on stowage plan is built,whose objective is to minimize the number of overlapping amount when containers loading onto the vessels.The stowage plan can be simplified as two elements,the destination of containers and container weight.A concept of "fall column" in shunting operation plan is thus proposed solving this problem.The optimization of the yard space resource in the rail-water container terminal cannot only provide theoretical and practical reference for rail-water container terminal but also lay the foundation for the rail-water container intermodal network scheduling optimization in a scientific and efficient way.In addition,accomplishing the goal of optimization for container storage resources in the container terminal is the precondition of network scheduling optimization.The example shows that the model can effectively improve the utilization of space resources in the yard and reduce the overlapping amounts in each stack.