Simultaneous scheduling of import and export containers handling in container terminals

Abstract

This paper studies the simultaneous scheduling of landside container handling operations in a container terminal. Issues addressed include scheduling the sequence of loading (unloading) of containers to (from) the vessels from (to) the quayside, assigning trucks to transport containers between quayside and yard side, and scheduling operations of yard cranes in different yard zones. A mathematical model describing the characteristics of the problem is developed. The objective is to minimize the total completion time for handling all the containers under consideration in the terminal. As optimizing the landside container handling operations in a terminal is known to be NP-hard, a new genetic algorithm with the selection process based on the principle of simulated annealing is developed in this paper to solve the problem. Comparison of the respective results obtained by using the proposed genetic algorithm, the canonical genetic algorithm and the simulated annealing algorithm clearly shows that the total completion times obtained by the proposed algorithm are 12%-18% shorter than that obtained by GA and SA, and the computing times of GA-SA are only 50% of that of GA. The proposed genetic algorithm is indeed superior to the other two algorithms.