Container Yard Allocation under Uncertainty

Abstract

This paper investigates allocation of space in storage yard to export containers under uncertain shipment information. We define two types of stacks: one is called the dedicated stack and the other is called the shared stack. Since containers meant for the same destination are assigned to dedicated stacks in the same block, no re-handling is required for containers in dedicated stacks. However, containers in shared stacks have different destinations; re-handling is required. We develop a two-stage stochastic recourse programming model for determining an optimal storage strategy, called the dual-response storage strategy. The first-stage response, regarding the allocation of containers to dedicated stacks, is made before accurate shipment information becomes available. The second-stage response, regarding allocation of additional containers to shared stacks, is taken after realization of stochasticity. Then, the unused spaces in the yard area can be released for other purposes. Computational results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed dual-response storage strategy obtained from the stochastic model.