Research On Scheduling And Decision-making For Quay Side Operations Of Main Container Ports

The factors such as the development of mega container ships, the increasingly fierce competition among container ports and the reinforcement of globalization of supply chain, request the main container ports in different regions of the world to improve their service level, to reduce their operation cost in order to gain stronger competitiveness in the global shipping market. As the productivity of berth influences the waiting and berthing time of container ships directly, and then the satisfaction of the customers is affected, improving the productivity of berth is quite significant to enhance the competitiveness of container ports. Proper allocation and scheduling of the facilities and equipment are helpful for improving the productivity of berth, so this paper tries to find out effective methods for formulating quay side production plans in container ports so as to help the container ports to improve their operation and service level.To begin with, the current competition among main container ports throughout the world and development trend of mega container ships are introduced and analyzed. Based on the introduction and analysis, the importance of formulating proper and effective quay side plans for container ports is explained. Then, the daily operations in container ports are introduced, including the functional components of container port, the handling crafts in container ports and the decisions to be made in container ports' daily operations. By introducing the daily operations in container ports, the importance of quay side plans to container ports' development is emphasized again.Based on the daily operations in container ports, a mathematical model for berth and quay cranes allocation is formulated. Compared to traditional modeling method, a new modeling method-- the “3-dimensional modeling method” is proposed. In this way, a mathematical model with fewer variables is formulated. Some computational experiments are carried out to testify the correctness of the mathematical model with LINGO optimization solver. Since the mathematical model forbids the adjustment of quay crane allocation when corresponding vessel is being handled, an improvement algorithm is used to increase the utility of the quay cranes.Besides, this paper studies the quay crane scheduling problem based on the berth and quay crane allocation plan. The structure of container ships and the reasons of the containers' relocations are analyzed, after which the assumptions and constraints of quay crane scheduling problem are explained. With the help of LINGO optimization solver, the optimal solutions to various experimental samples can be gained very soon. Therefore, the effectiveness of the quay crane scheduling model is testified. Apart from that, the sensitivity analysis is conducted to figure out the influences of different factors to the value of optimal solutions.Finally, this paper summarizes the works that have been completed and indicates the problems to be studied in the future.