Quay crane scheduling for an indented berth

Abstract

This article explores the quay crane scheduling problem at an indented berth. The indented berth is known as an innovative implementation in the container terminals to tackle the challenge from the emergence of more and more mega-containerships. A mixed integer programming model by considering the non-crossing and safety distance constraints is formulated. A Tabu search heuristic is developed to solve the proposed problem. The computational results from this research indicate that the designed Tabu search is an effective method to handle the quay crane scheduling problem at an indented berth. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.