Real-time container storage location assignment at an RTG-based seaport container transshipment terminal: problem description, control system, simulation model, and penalty scheme experimentation

Abstract

We show how the overall productivity of an RTG-based seaport container terminal depends on the system used for automatically selecting storage locations for export containers in real time as they enter the terminal. Several real-time container storage systems are proposed and evaluated by a fully-integrated, discrete event simulation model of a vessel-to-vessel transshipment terminal. In this study, we introduce the problem; present a system for making real-time container storage decisions; describe the simulation model used for experimentation; and describe an experiment that illustrates some of the main trade-offs involved in container storage decisions.