Yard crane management by simulation and optimization

In a terminal container the yard management is a critical and dynamic component that requires governance and flexibility to adapt to and address even the most complex issues arising out of yard planning and operations. With particular reference to the assignment and deployment of Rubber Tired Gantry Cranes among yard blocks, an optimisation model is proposed. Its purpose is to determine the block pairs between which yard cranes will be transferred during the period under examination in order to satisfy the crane capacity requirements and minimise the total cost for block matching and crane activation. The use of this stand-alone optimisation approach is then extended by introducing the architecture of an integrated framework, which includes both optimisation and simulation techniques and is based on an all-inclusive queuing network representing the main subsystems of a terminal. During scenario analysis, the framework is designed to evaluate which policy for assigning yard cranes to yard blocks is best for meeting the dynamic and constantly updating requirements of the yard subsystem. To this purpose, some Ranking and Selection (R&S) techniques are considered. The ongoing numerical experiments mean to demonstrate how a newly proposed R&S procedure is sufficiently robust for use in practice.