Ant Colony Optimization for Solving Container Stacking Problems

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study to use the ant colony optimization (ACO) in solving an export container stacking and storage problem of a container terminal port. Three different methods of solutions based on different initial solution techniques and the current method used by the port were used to test forty sample problems which were classified into four problem types representing different patterns of container arrivals. The results of this study revealed that the three methods based on the ACO could be used to improve the total time taken for stacking and storage of the export containers for all problem types. Among the methods investigated, the heuristic-based ant colony optimization (BACO) method proved to be the most efficient for all problem types, with the relative improvements over the current method ranging from 25.4-38.7%.