Study On Optimization Of Traffic System For A Container Terminal Based On Cellular Automaton Model

As being one part of the container freight handling and the operating for thetraffic system of container terminal, its operating efficiency decides directly theservice level of the total terminal. Then the operating states of port road and theservice level of port gate-in and gate-out are affected. These, which include theoptimized design during prophase construction period and the optimizedtransportation organization during operation management period, are the basicworking to assure the high efficiency operating with the low cost for containerterminal. Although there are some research about the system optimizing of containerterminal e.g., by using analytic model and simulation model, these theories andmethods do not relate to traffic flow nonlinear, given that these approaches with manyassumption were proposed not from the angle of multi-agent decision method. Fewresearch aspects using a two-dimension cellular automata model focus on only onemodule of container terminal system. The handling process of container freight in athree-dimension space has not been described. Based on this, the strategies problem ofoptimizing the traffic system for a container terminal was studied by establishing atwo-dimension cellular automata model. The main work in this paper could besummarized as the following aspects:(1) According to the operation process of container terminal enterprise and therunning rules of container and its truck, a cellular automaton model was establishedincluding container freight handling subsystem, terminal yard subsystem, terminalroad subsystem, and gate subsystem, where a three-dimension cellular automatamodel was used to describe the turning over and transfer operation of container interminal yard subsystem. It provided a basic model or a basic platform to study theoptimized design and operating management of container terminal.(2) The optimization of container terminal including design and operatingmanagement was discussed via the simulation experiments by the cellular automatonmodel. The optimized gate number was determined after the operating states of thesystem were analyzed by setting the different gate number and the length of buffer.The method was proposed to determine the operating gate number during the rushhours by VSM. The results of the examples show that the high efficiency operating of gate can be realized, the traffic jams phenomena of port road can be suppressedfarthest due to the queue decreasing of gate by using the method to design, operateand manage the container terminal.(3) The characteristics of traffic system for container terminal were discussed viathe simulation experiments by the cellular automaton model. The reasonable scale ofthe yard and the number of container trucks was determined from the angle of thesystem by comparing the operating efficiency of the traffic system with setting thedifferent numbers of the yards and the container trucks. The results of the examplesshow that the optimized number of yard and container truck can be determined, thetraffic system of container terminal can be kept smooth operation, and the resource ofcontainer truck can be used with high container truck by using the method to design,operate and manage the container terminal.