Research on the effect of number of yard trucks on container terminal throughput

Abstract

Container terminal productivity is a benchmark for the level of effectiveness of a container port. One indicator of container terminal productivity level can be calculated through yard throughput. Several factors affect yard throughput, one of which is the number of truck terminals. This study aims to investigate the effect of the number of truck terminals on yard throughput at a container terminal. The investigation was conducted using a container terminal simulation which was based on the discrete event simulation method. As a case study, a simulation of a container terminal with a dock length of 300 m with several quay cranes was two units. The simulation was done by parameters adding the number of truck terminals and variations in the capacity of ships coming. The results of the simulation show that an increase in the number of truck terminals affects the number of outputs, depending on the size of the loading and unloading vessels. From the simulation results obtained, the largest yard throughput capacity of 809 containers with the number of truck terminals is 8 units on a shipload of 1,000 twenty-foot equivalent units. The results of this study provide an overview of the needs of the truck terminal in the container terminal. Highlights The yard throughput of the container terminal has been investigated by a simulation model built based on a discrete event simulation The discrete event simulation has obtained the effect of increasing the number of truck terminals on the yard throughputs with container capacity variations from 200 - 1,000 TEUs The increase in speed at the truck terminal is insignificant to increase yard throughput and necessary to do integrated scheduling between the truck terminals, quay cranes, and gantry cranes The increase in the quay crane operation in container terminals will decrease the dwell time of container throughput