Dynamic deployment rule of transfer cranes in container terminal

Abstract

In a container terminal, the workload distribution among storage blocks (container stacking areas) changes over time. Therefore, transfer cranes (TCs), which are mobile cranes for container handling in storage blocks, have to move among blocks appropriately according to the distribution, and, the efficiency of yard operations depends heavily on the productivity of TCs. In the proposed method, we calculate the distribution by looking ahead to determine the deployment of TCs dynamically. The simulation results show that the proposed method can improve the efficiency of yard operations.