Integrated Scheduling of Yard and Rail Container Handling Equipment and Internal Trucks in a Multimodal Port

This paper presents a multi-objective optimization model to integrate the scheduling of three types of equipment-railway container operation gantry cranes, yard stacking cranes, and internal trucks-in a multimodal container terminal involving mixed operations of four types of container flows in a partial joint storage yard. The four flows include import/export railway containers and import/export highway containers. The model incorporates realistic constraints such as train operation time windows and container precedence relationships. An adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) algorithm, coupled with discrete-event simulation (DES), was designed to solve the problem. Computational experiments were conducted to evaluate various multiple objectives and verified the effectiveness of the proposed solution algorithm through different scale data, as well as provided a sensitivity analysis of the quantitative relationship between the three types of equipment in terms of operation efficiency and equipment utilization in the system. Finally, this paper discusses the impact of the partial joint storage yard strategy on the railway operation area and yard operations. To implement the solution to meet the requirements of efficient equipment utilization and seamless container transshipment operations in a multimodal port, it is imperative to have fast and accurate data sharing among the railway, highway, and port systems. We envisioned that 6G communication would enable that.

Automated summary

This paper presents a multi-objective optimization model for integrating the scheduling of three types of equipment in a multimodal container terminal. An adaptive large neighborhood search algorithm coupled with discrete-event simulation was designed to solve the problem. Computational experiments were conducted to evaluate various objectives and verify the effectiveness of the proposed solution algorithm. The impact of the partial joint storage yard strategy on the railway operation area and yard operations was also discussed.