Constraint and Mathematical Programming Models for Integrated Port Container Terminal Operations
This addresses operational efficiency for port container terminals, but it is incremental as it builds on existing work by integrating previously separate problems.
The paper tackles the integrated optimization of quay crane assignment, scheduling, yard location assignment, and vehicle dispatching at container terminals to minimize vessel turnover times and maximize throughput, with results showing that a Constraint Programming model finds optimal solutions efficiently for realistic instances.
This paper considers the integrated problem of quay crane assignment, quay crane scheduling, yard location assignment, and vehicle dispatching operations at a container terminal. The main objective is to minimize vessel turnover times and maximize the terminal throughput, which are key economic drivers in terminal operations. Due to their computational complexities, these problems are not optimized jointly in existing work. This paper revisits this limitation and proposes Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) and Constraint Programming (CP) models for the integrated problem, under some realistic assumptions. Experimental results show that the MIP formulation can only solve small instances, while the CP model finds optimal solutions in reasonable times for realistic instances derived from actual container terminal operations.