A service-oriented model for the yard management problem in container terminals

Abstract

This study proposes a novel service-oriented model for the yard management problem in container terminals. Two decisions of the yard management problem are integrated instead of being solved hierarchically: storage allocation for containers that arrive in near future and yard crane (YC) deployment for assigning yard cranes over the entire storage yard. A concept of YC assignment profile is proposed in order to take into account the requirement of YC work patterns. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear program with the objective of minimizing total delayed workload and YC movement penalty as well as the total container moving distance. A rolling horizon approach (RHA) is developed to obtain good solutions in an efficient manner. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.