Minimizing Empty Trips of Yard Trucks in Container Terminals by Dual Cycle Operations

Abstract

One of the most important objectives of the schedules in a container terminal is to minimize the ship operation time, which consists of discharging and loading operation times. Recently, dual cycling techniques have been used for improving terminal operations, especially for reducing the total empty trips of handling equipment. The main focus of this study is to reduce the empty trip times of yard trucks with minimum delays for ship operations. A heuristic algorithm, modified from a previous algorithm, is proposed to solve this problem. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate the effect of different types of discharging and loading schedules and different locating methods for discharging containers in terms of the performance of the system, including the percentage of the dual cycle operations of yard trucks.