Owing that the internal trucks (ITs) are frequently used as transportation equipments between yards and quaysides, the transportation efficiency of ITs secures a crucial position in container terminal productivity. Hence, a container terminal cannot contain a big number of ITs. As such, it is an imperative to explore an appropriate IT assignment strategy. Specifically for those container termin...

In this paper we present a discrete event simulation model to approach the decision problems arising from an expansion plan of a marine container terminal. In particular the preliminary study herein presented starts from a collaboration with the Southern European Container Hub (SECH) sited in the Port of Genoa, Italy. The planned expansion will take place from 2010, the terminal area will enlar...

In automated container terminals, containers are transported between ships and storage yard by differen types of vehicles, for example, guided vehicle (AGV, yard crane (YC) and quay crane (QC). To improve the productivity of the automated container terminals, it is important to harmoniously synchronize operations of different types of container handling equipment. This paper examines the schedu...

Container terminals mainly include three types of handling equipment, i.e., quay cranes (QCs), internal trucks (ITs) and yard cranes (YCs). Due to high cost of the handling equipment, container terminals can hardly purchase additional handling equipment. Therefore, the reasonable scheduling of these handling equipment, especially coordinated scheduling of the three types of handling equipment, ...

A new layout of the U-shaped automated terminal is more convenient to connect between and railway. In this study, a sort cluster scheduling method for multiple equipment yard railway proposed. The innovation points are as follows: (1) Considering that rail gantry crane (RGC), intelligent guided vehicle (IGV), double cantilever (DCRC) usually work in groups, they grouped cluster-scheduled. (2) h...

Material handling equipment plays an important role in the design and development of advance manufacturing systems (AMS) like flexible manufacturing systems. Material handling equipments affects the performance and productivity of these advance manufacturing systems. So it becomes very important to select a right kind of equipment while designing the high end manufacturing systems like FMS. In ...

Container handling problems at the container terminals are NP-hard problems. In this paper, we propose a new handling operation’s design and simulation of empty containers, taking into account the interrelated activities at the container terminal. This simulation have been built using a doubled trailer. It moves containers from quayside to yard side or the opposite depending on the flow in cont...

Effective control and operation of handling equipment in port container terminals are crucial in enhancing the overall efficiency and performance of container handling in import, export and transshipment. Nowadays, more and more container terminals are deploying automated handling equipment to improve the overall productivity. As the equipment is often unmanned and automatically controlled, it ...

For managing reefer containers more efficiently, it is important to optimally determine the block size and the layout of reefer containers in the early design phase. Work balances among blocks of a yard have a significant effect on the productivity of container handling activities in automated container terminals (ACTs), and thus, the productivity of the whole terminal highly depends on the lay...