System Analysis Of Empty Container Management At Chittagong Port,Bangladesh

Chittagong is a port city in Bangladesh,and the port of Chittagong has experienced tremendous growth in the past few years.However,it faced some logistical challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic and empty container management issues needed to be addressed.A review of the literature shows that regional relocation is a complex problem due to the large number of interacting parts and distributed decision-making among stakeholders with conflicting goals,this paper considers optimizing the flow of goods related to cities activities and reduce the total social cost of these activities,the purpose of the study is to describe and analyze the movement of empty containers in CTG ports in detail using an agent-based modeling(ABM)approach designed to represent complex systems.This article uses a qualitative research method named essay formatted questionnaire survey online.The survey assessed stakeholder responses and analyzed CTG Port’s existing systems.The survey revealed that the Chittagong port has eight stakeholders with various roles,while stevedores and transport operators are at the heart of the container movement.Although the final stages of the system were completed by handing over empty containers to stevedores,the empty container carriers received little communication and had limited planning capacity.Additionally,the time lag between stevedores and importers forces shipping providers to hold containers,resulting in additional shipping and shipping costs.Overall,lack of understanding among stakeholders and lack of coordination of working hours are the main problems with the existing system.Various remedies have been proposed for these problems,including increased business hours,container triangulation which ensures the reuse of empty containers for export,and the adoption of appropriate forecasting indicators and tools.Finally,a conceptual model was converted into a simulation model in the form of an agent-based model for a proof-of-concept that graphically simulates the system’s logistical processes and opportunities for interaction in a natural,flexible and dynamic way.Empty containers account for a considerable proportion of logistics activities,but there are no previous studies on container freight operations in Chittagong Port,so this paper fills the gap in the analysis of CTG empty container management represented by the conceptual model and the ABM model.This paper contains 7 Figures,4 Tables,and 53 References.