Abstract
This paper introduces a novel quay crane design, double girder bridge crane (DGBC). DGBC is capable of handling containers of two adjacent bays simultaneously, avoiding crane collisions, saving travelling and reposition cost, and eventually improving terminal efficiency. This problem is formulated as a resource-constrained project scheduling with objective to minimize the maximum completion time. A two-stage heuristic algorithm is proposed in which an operating sequences on each bay is obtained by double cycling, and the integrated timetable for both bays is constructed by solving resource conflicts using the proposed minimum cost strategy. We examine effectiveness and performance of applying DGBC with double cycling. A case study is presented to illustrate how DGBC works with the two-stage method. Three extreme cases with respective conflict types are investigated to develop the performance bounds of DGBC with double cycling. The results show that DGBC can significantly improve terminal productivity, and outperforms single girder crane in both makespan and the lift operation percentage. The highest DGBC efficiency does not require maximum double cycles in two bay schedules; rather the integrated timetable for two bays is the main contribution to the DGBC performance as it yields better cooperation between two spreaders and the driver.
Highlights
The rapid growth in global trade has led to remarkably higher shipping volumes and increased vessel carrying capacity
Through the two-stage method, all conflicts are examined and addressed sequentially, and the double girder bridge crane (DGBC) problem can be separated into several parts each of which is of one extreme case
Both DGBC and single girder quay crane (SG) are evaluated on n activities of two bays, and the three extreme cases of DGBC problem are compared with SG in which SG-SS is set as the reference
Summary
The rapid growth in global trade has led to remarkably higher shipping volumes and increased vessel carrying capacity. Technological innovations and high-efficient scheduling strategies are required to meet the demand of increasing throughput in container terminals, especially in managing larger capacity vessels while reducing operating cost and maintaining service reliability. Limited by the current technologies of transportation, the previous work has been mainly focused on the operating strategies for the existing equipment, that is, the traditional single girder quay crane (SG). Cranes are costly as they consume a great deal of power to travel and position between bays which leads to a less economical manner for terminals. If cranes can be deployed in a multiple girders, the efficiency of terminal would be greatly enhanced
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