Combined Configuration of Container Terminal Berth and Quay Crane considering Carbon Cost

Berths and quay cranes are scarce resources in the container terminal system. If the equipment is reasonably planned, the service quality might be improved and the operation cost of the terminal would be reduced. In addition, the competition among ports is not only the competition of the terminal service quality, throughput, and scale but also the competition of low-energy consumption and low pollution. In order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, this paper developed a multiobjective optimization model for the joint allocation of container terminal berths and Quay cranes. The model is developed based on preference of ships for berths, and the impact of carbon emission cost on terminal operations have been considered. The carbon cost from two aspects, namely, reducing the operation cost of ships and minimizing the average waiting time and departure delay of ships, has been considered. The improved adaptive genetic algorithm has been used to solve the model. A container terminal in Ningbo has been used as a case study. The carbon emission cost of the berths and quay cranes operation system has been calculated. The influence of the variation in carbon emission cost on the berths and quay cranes configuration scheme has been evaluated. The result proves that considering the carbon cost can make the berths and quay cranes operation more green and reasonable. It can be seen that the objective function value of the joint scheme is 5.92% lower than that of the traditional scheme, and the terminal operation cost of carbon emission constraints is 11.76% lower than that of no carbon emission constraints.

Container Terminal Berth-Quay Crane Capacity Planning Based on Markov Chain

This paper constructs a berth-quay crane capacity planning model with the lowest average daily cost in the container terminal, and analyzes the influence of the number of berths and quay cranes on the terminal operation. The object of berth-quay crane capacity planning is to optimize the number of berths and quay cranes to maximize the benefits of the container terminal. A steady state probability transfer model based on Markov chain for container terminal is constructed by the historical time series of the queuing process. The current minimum time operation principle (MTOP) strategy is proposed to correct the state transition probability of the Markov chain due to the characteristics of the quay crane movement to change the service capacity of a single berth. The solution error is reduced from 7.03% to 0.65% compared to the queuing theory without considering the quay crane movement, which provides a basis for the accurate solution of the berth-quay crane capacity planning model. The proposed berth-quay crane capacity planning model is validated by two container terminal examples, and the results show that the model can greatly guide the container terminal berth-quay crane planning.

Determining the optimal number of yard trucks in smaller container terminals

Background In 2017, smaller container ports handled approximately 22% of total containerized cargo. Nowadays liner operators are calling on those ports with larger ships and demanding fast and efficient turnaround of the ships in port. This is possible only if the berth has the right capacities, is working properly and achieves a good productivity level. Methodology Productivity level does not depend only on the quay crane capacities but also the transfer mechanisation, of which the main function is to serve quay cranes on one side and yard cranes on the other side. Choosing the correct type and number of vehicles to transfer container units from berth to yard has become a very important decision in every container terminal. Results In small container terminals yard trucks represents the most common type of transfer mechanization. That is why this research is based on the allocation of the right number of yard trucks to quay cranes in order to assure better productivity levels in the berth and yard subsystems. For this purpose, a discrete-event simulation modelling approach is used. The approach is applied to a hypothetical small container terminal, which includes operations on the berth-yard-berth relation.

Planning of one-way quay cranes using the genetic algorithm

The quay crane scheduling problem plays an essential role in the port container terminal management paradigm, as it is closely related to the berthing time of ships. In this article, we focus on the quay crane scheduling problem based on a special strategy, which forces the quay crane to move in one direction during the process of unloading and loading the containers. The scheduling problem that arises when this strategy is applied is called the one-way scheduling problem of quay cranes in the literature. In this article, we seek a mathematical formula for the unidirectional scheduling problem of quay cranes that can be easily solved by genetic algorithms. This algorithm provides us with the best combination of containers to unload and load at the optimal time.