Optimising Machine Usage for Container Transfers at Multi- Modal Container Terminals

In a container terminal, containers unloaded from a ship are moved to the yard during the import operation. The export operation is the reverse of the import process. When a ship is served by multiple shore-cranes having both loading and unloading activities at the same time, a yard-machine can process an import container and an export container in one single round-trip. This paper investigates a model that concerns with the location and loading/unloading speed of shore-cranes, speed of yard machines, as well as the location of containers in the storage yard. The aim is to optimise the scheduling of container processes in maximising the efficiency of ports. The problem is solved using meta-heuristic techniques.