The outbound container slot allocation based on the stowage plan in rail–water intermodal container terminals

Yimei Chang,Ali Haghani,Xiaoning Zhu

doi:10.1177/0020294019842599

Abstract

In the past, most researchers focused on the storage space allocation problem or container block allocation problem in maritime container terminals, while few studied the container slot allocation problem in rail–water intermodal container terminals. Container slot allocation problem is proposed to reduce relocation operations of containers in railway container yards and improve the efficiency of rail–water intermodal container terminals. In this paper, a novel outbound container slot allocation model is introduced to reduce the rehandling operations, considering stowage plan, containers left from earlier planning periods and container departure time. A novel heuristic algorithm based on the rolling planning horizon approach is developed to solve the proposed problem effectively. Computational experiments are carried out to validate that the proposed model and algorithm are feasible and effective to enhance the storage effect. Meanwhile, some other experiments are conducted to verify that our approach is better than the regular allocation approach, which is a common method in marine and railway container terminals, and container weight is the most important influence factor when storing containers.

Highlights

Intermodal transportation is defined as the successive use of a variety of modes of transportation, such as road, railway, water and air, without handling the goods during transfers between modes.[1]
In rail–water intermodal container terminals, other than quayside area, container yards, inner truck travelling paths and gates, the railway operation area, where many containers transported by train are handled and stored, is an important part
The main contributions of this paper are (1) the container slot allocation problem is studied to allocate arrival outbound containers to the optimal slots in the railway container yard so that the number of rehandling operations will be reduced; (2) stowage plan, departure time and containers left from earlier planning periods are considered in the container slot allocation problem and (3) a novel heuristic algorithm (HA) is developed, which introduces the rolling planning horizon

Summary

Introduction

Intermodal transportation is defined as the successive use of a variety of modes of transportation, such as road, railway, water and air, without handling the goods during transfers between modes.[1]. In this paper, we mainly consider container slot allocation problem of the railway container yard in the rail–water intermodal container terminal. Because of the structure of vessels, positions of outbound containers in vessels must obey the stowage plan and some other rules during the voyage This will lead to storing outbound containers in the railway container yard more complicated. The main contributions of this paper are (1) the container slot allocation problem is studied to allocate arrival outbound containers to the optimal slots in the railway container yard so that the number of rehandling operations will be reduced; (2) stowage plan (container weight and arrival port order), departure time and containers left from earlier planning periods are considered in the container slot allocation problem and (3) a novel heuristic algorithm (HA) is developed, which introduces the rolling planning horizon. Computational results are analysed in section ‘Case study’ and eventually section ‘Conclusion’ covers the conclusion and proposes the future research direction

Literature review

Findings

Declaration of conflicting interests