Soft computing methods for seaports’ scenario generationx

Abstract

Special influence on the characteristics of the projected seaports is made by meteorological conditions of the area of their position. The meteorological conditions can significantly affect the uneven arrival of ships, which in turn leads to an increase in their turnaround time. The standards of technological design of seaports are supposed to take into account the unevenness of cargo traffic and weather conditions with the help of appropriate coefficients that increase the amount of required resources. However, the operating conditions of seaports in the Arctic, in the general case, are random, difficult to predict, which negates the use of these coefficients. At the same time, in the practice of seaports, the method of scenario planning is actively used, which, together with simulation modeling, makes it possible to estimate the probability that an appropriate amount of resources will be required, as well as the probability of a vessel's turnaround time in the port, taking into account a given uneven cargo flow, meteorological conditions, random the nature of the berth performance. An approach to the scenario generation of seaport operating conditions, based on the method of soft computing is described in this article. It is proved in the paper that described method provides flexible scenario generation. The scenario characteristics can be set not just with quantitative values, but also with the qualitative ones: for example, “medium”, “high” or “low” levels of cargo flow. The Authors show that the generated scenarios allow providing the “if, else” scenario for the existing and developing ports. The proposed method for generating scenarios is used in simulation models, the main task of which is to estimate the amount of seaport resources.