Priority allocation of ships in a port simulation

The limited jetty capacity of ports causes costly ship delays, particularly for large ocean-going vessels. Terminal operators attempt to reduce ship delays both in number and duration but have to take the number of jetties and their functionality and layout as a fact. Ships can arrive according to a schedule, for example based on stock levels, or unscheduled, or even uncontrolled which is the case in a Poisson process. Additional control of the arrival process through the application of priority rules in processing ships further impacts the efficiency, both for stockcontrolled and equidistant arrivals. In this design process the various ship parameters such as their length, depth, loading capacity and type of cargo have to be taken into account. Based on data from a real case study, this article describes a number of simulation experiments. The results show that not only the arrival process design but also the use of priority rules will enhance the efficiency of the loading/unloading process.