Load Scheduling of Multiple Yard Crane Systems in Container Terminal with Buffer Areas

Abstract

This paper addresses the load scheduling problem of multiple yard crane systems in container terminals with buffer areas. In the problem several yard cranes are used to pick up a sequence of containers for a quay crane. The containers picked up ahead of schedule can be stored in buffer areas until they can be handled by the quay crane. An integer programming model is developed for the problem formulation. In the model the work schedules of different yard cranes are decided simultaneously to minimize the loading time. The yard crane scheduling problem is NP-complete by nature. Therefore a scheduling heuristic is designed to solve the proposed problem. Numerical experiments are conducted to compare the performance of the multiple yard crane systems in container terminals with and without buffer areas.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

W. C.

Crane Scheduling in Container Yards with Inter-Crane Interference. European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 164, 2005, pp. 64–78.

Kim

K. Y.

and Kim

K. H.

. An Optimal Routing Algorithm for a Transfer Crane in Port Container Terminals. Transportation Science, Vol. 33, No. 1 1999, pp. 17–33.

Narasimhan

and Palekar

U. S.

. Analysis and Algorithm for the Yard Crane Routing Problem in Container Port Operation. Transportation Science, Vol. 36, No. 1 2002, pp. 63–78.

Kim

K. Y.

and Kim

K. H.

. Heuristic Algorithms for Routing Yard-Side Equipment for Minimizing Loading Times in Container Terminals. Naval Research Logistics, Vol. 50, 2003, pp. 498–514.

Kim

K. Y.

Jung

S. H.

and Kim

K. H.

. Loading Scheduling for Two Quay Cranes in Port Container Terminals. Proc., Intelligent Manufacturing & Logistics Systems, Kitakyushu, Japan, 2005.

Lee

D.-H.

Cao

and Meng

. Scheduling Two-Transtainer Systems for the Loading Operation of Containers Using a Revised Genetic Algorithm. Presented at 85th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, 2006, Washington, D.C.

Jung

S. H.

and Kim

K. H.

. Load Scheduling for Multiple Quay Cranes in Port Container Terminals. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Vol. 17, 2006, pp. 479–492.

Cao

Lee

D.-H.

and Meng

. Scheduling of Multiple Yard Crane System with Container Loading Sequence Consideration. Presented at 85th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, 2006, Washington, D.C.