Towards A Decision Support System for Optimization of Container Placement in a Container Terminal

Maritime transport moves a majority of the goods and global trade around the globe. This mode of transport involves loading and unloading of containers at ports. Upon arrival at a port, the ships remain inactive during the operations of loading and unloading. The terminal operator receives a schedule indicating the dates of loading and unloading of containers and their locations in the storage areas. Once berthing takes place, ships are unloaded by gantry cranes to the handling area, where the containers are then collected for transfer to storage areas or buffer zones. Container terminals are essential inter-modal interfaces for the worldwide transportation network. An optimal location for a container terminal is very important for the operators and companies as it can minimize the number of unnecessary movements within the storage area and the terminal, which can reduce transportation costs. In this work, the authors propose a container placement problem and a solution approach through a model for decision support that can solved and optimized for the storage space available. In other words, a model that minimizes the total number of unnecessary movements, while respecting the dynamic constraints of space and time.