Reducing Marine Container Terminal Gate Congestion with Vessel-Dependent Time Windows for Truck Entries

In recent years, marine container terminal gate congestion becomes a serious issue, because not only it limits the efficiency of logistics system, but also the fact of serious air pollution it generated. The direct reason has been recognized to be the unmanaged container truck arrivals. One of the possible solutions is that the terminal operator provides vessel-dependent time windows for the truck entries, which has already been used in many Chinese seaports. Previously, the authors proposed the idea of time window optimization and analyzed its economic feasibility in the context of the export direction gate operation. This paper, as a following study, addresses the practical applications of this solution. First, a framework is developed for the application of time window optimization in container terminals. Based on the framework, the optimization model is modified with more practical constraints and heuristic of genetic algorithm is improved to be more efficient.. Then two optimization strategies are proposed, namely fixed end-point time window (FEP) and variable end-point time window (VEP). To compare the effectiveness of two strategies, the optimization model and the heuristic are applied to some tests, including a real data test and a scenarios test. The result indicates that good coordination is necessary for assigning time windows, where FEP strategy performs better than VEP strategy because it can achieve almost same effect with only half calculation effort. During the tests, some practical problems are also discussed, such as vessel delays and yard capacity.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Chen, Gang
  • Yang, Zhongzhen
  • Jiang, Liping
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2010-1-10 to 2010-1-14
• Date: 2010

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 89th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Forecasting; Freight terminals; Freight traffic; Intermodal terminals; Optimization; Port congestion; Terminal operations; Vessel traffic control
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Marine Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01153550
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 10-0545
• Files: BTRIS, TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 31 2010 7:46AM