A New Mathematical Model for Container Stacking in Seaport Terminals: Case Study

Maritime transport is the operation of moving goods from one place to another by sea. It takes into account the loading and unloading of containers in ports. Once the vessels arrived at the quayside, they are unloaded by means of quay cranes and then transferred to the storage or transshipment areas. The Container Stacking Problem (CSP) is one of the major problems in seaport terminals, in particular in view of the considerable increase in the number of containers and the limitation of storage areas in the container ports. It has a considerable impact on the efficiency of port operations. In this paper, we propose a new mathematical model for determining the exact storage locations of incoming containers in the storage zone in order to minimize the total travelling distance from the quay to the storage location. The suggested model takes into account different types of containers. It has been validated based on the real case study of the Tunisian Sfax seaport. The obtained results are promising and the storage responsible is satisfied with the reached solutions.