Study on quay crane allocation problem for thevessels withdifferent priorities in container terminals

Abstract

The decision of quay cranes cheduling problemis crucial for port operators in port container terminals. In this study, in view of analysis and summary of general experience in the quay-crane resource allocation, such allocation problem in container terminals is proposed on the basis of advance rule,namely, how to assign limited quay cranes for berthing vessels while meeting the requirement of hand ling workloads and its distribution, in-port turnaround time, dispatching fees and other factors. According to the features of loading and unloading operations in container terminals, an integer programming model is established for quay crane allocation problem and then corresponding solver is developed by AIMMS tool. The practicality and effectiveness of the model is demonstrated by large amounts of case study and the robustness of algorithm is testified to be feasible. The utilization of this decision model can improve the overall performance of quay cranes, reduce handling cost and enhance operational efficiency. © 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information.