Yard Crane Pools and Optimum Layouts for Storage Yards of Container Terminals

As more and more container terminals open up all over the world, competition for business is becoming very intense for container terminal operators. They are finding out that even to keep their existing Sea Line customers, they have to make them happy by offering higher quality service. The quality of service they can provide depends on their operating policies and the design of the terminal layout. Existing layouts based on designs prepared a long time ago pose inherent limitations. We summarize some of these problems, and report on newer operating policies and designs which can help improve performance.