Abstract
During export ship loading operations, it is often necessary to perform relocation movements with containers that interfere with access to the desired container in the ship loading sequence. This paper presents a real-time heuristic procedure for the container relocation problem employing reachstacker vehicles as container handling equipment. The proposed heuristic searches for good relocation coordinates within a set of nearby bays. The heuristic has a parameter that determines how far from the original bay a container may be relocated. The tradeoff between reducing relocation movements and limiting vehicle travel distances is examined and the performance of the heuristic is compared with a common practice in the smaller container terminals in Chile and Mexico. Finally, a mathematical model for the container relocation problem is presented.
Highlights
Introduction and Literature ReviewMaritime terminals are facilities with a constant need to plan space to receive ships in the quay and to store their corresponding inbound and outbound containers in the port yard
We propose a heuristic procedure which suggests Baroti coordinates for interfering containers during the loading operation when reachstacker vehicles are the available handling equipment
When the yard wants to perform the minimum number of relocation movements, the interfering containers are relocated in any bay of the yard, regardless of its proximity to the original bay in which the container is stored
Summary
Maritime terminals are facilities with a constant need to plan space to receive ships in the quay and to store their corresponding inbound and outbound containers in the port yard. The framework proposed has the aim of providing real-time decision support to deal with the uncertain arrival sequence of containers to the yard that is operated with RTGs. In contrast with the paper of Ries et al [21], where the authors propose a fuzzy logic rule, we propose a heuristic approach to solve the problem. In contrast to the previous literature, which considers Rubber-Tired-Gantry (RTG) cranes for container handling in the port yard, this paper provides a solution to the container relocation problem employing reachstacker vehicles, opening a new line of research. The main contribution of this paper is a real-time heuristic procedure that determines the new Baroti coordinates for relocated containers when relocation movements are performed, assuming that the containers are handled with reachstacker vehicles and the bays are accessed from only one side. The total number of relocation movements resulting using this strategy is compared with the strategy used in real practice in some Latin American ports
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