Efficient yard storage in transshipment container hub ports

Abstract

To handle the continuous growing container traffic, lots of researchers have studied various management problems at container terminals. However, they do not sufficiently address the particular needs of transshipment hubs, but more on general terminals which emphasize on import and export activities. To remedy this, this thesis studies the storage yard management problem particularly for transshipment hubs where the loading and unloading activities are both heavy and concentrated. First, an MIP model is developed to solve the yard template problem, in which the consignment strategy is used to store export and transshipment containers in dedicated storage locations to reduce the reshuffling level and a high-low workload balancing protocol is used to reduce the traffic congestion. Second, two simulation models are built to verify the effectiveness of the docking station concept for the import container blocks, in which the yard blocks for import containers are changed from horizontal to vertical to allow the port operator flexibility of assigning yard crane service priority.