A heuristic for re-marshalling unbound and outbound containers

Abstract

A container terminal is a complex set of logistics systems with dynamic and random interactions. Information related to the container flow is often uncertain. This modification is due to inaccuracies in the arrival, departure dates of ships and arrival times of customers' trucks. Indeed, the container storage problem becomes a dynamic problem which was the subject of this work. In this paper, a heuristic method for re-marhaling outbound and inbound containers is presented. With this method, we can overcome the uncertainties of departure, arrival time of container and improve the container storage planning. This problem is studied with different container types (regular, open side, open top, tank, empty, refrigerated). The objective is to find an optimal container storage plan which respects the departure dates of container and minimize their re-handling operations at their departure time. Some experimental results are presented and discussed to verify the performance of the proposed approach.