A workload balancing genetic algorithm for the quay crane scheduling problem

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel genetic algorithm to deal with the quay crane scheduling problem (QCSP), which is known to be one of the most critical tasks in terminal operations because its efficiency and the quality of the schedule directly influence the productivity of the terminal. QCSP has been studied intensively in recent years. Algorithms in this field are concerned in the solution quality obtained and the required computational time. As QCSP is known to be NP-hard, heuristic approaches are widely adopted. The genetic algorithm proposed is constructed with a novel workload balancing heuristics, which is capable of considering the loading conditions of different quay cranes (QCs) during the reassignment of task-to-QC. The idea is modelled as a fuzzy logic controller to guide the mutation rate and mutation mechanism of the genetic algorithm. As a result, the proposed algorithm does not require any predefined mutation rate. Meanwhile, the genetic algorithm can more adequately reassign tasks to QCs according to the QCs’ loading condition throughout the evolution. The proposed algorithm has been tested with the well-known benchmark problem sets in this field and produces some new best solutions in a much shorter computational time.