Storage space allocation at marine container terminals using ant-based control

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach for allocating containers to storage blocks in a marine container terminal. We model the container terminal as a network of gates, yard blocks and berths on which export and import containers are considered as bi-directional traffic. For both export and import containers, the yard blocks are the intermediate storage points between gates (landside) and berths (waterside). Our model determines the route for each individual container (i.e. assign the container to a block to be stored) based on two competing objectives: (1) balance the workload among yard blocks, and (2) minimize the distance traveled by internal trucks between yard blocks and berths. The model utilizes an ant-based control method. It exploits the trail laying behavior of ant colonies where ants deposit pheromones as a function of traveled distance and congestion at the blocks. The route of a container (i.e. selection of a yard block) is based on the pheromone distribution on the network. The results from experiments show that the proposed approach is effective in balancing the workload among yard blocks and reducing the distance traveled by internal transport vehicles during vessel loading and unloading operations.