A quay crane dynamic scheduling problem by hybrid evolutionary algorithm for berth allocation planning

A considerable growth in worldwide container transportation needs essential optimization of terminal operations. An operation schedule for berth and quay cranes can significantly affect turnaround time of ships, which is an important objective of all schedules in a port. This paper addresses the problem of determining the berthing position and time of each ship as well as the number of quay cranes assigned to each ship. The objective of the problem is to minimize the sum of the handling time, waiting time and the delay time for every ship. We introduce a formulation for the simultaneous berth and quay crane scheduling problem. Next, we combine genetic algorithm with heuristic to find an approximate solution for the problem. Computational experiments show that the proposed approaches are applicable to solve this difficult but essential terminal operation problem. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd, All rights reserved.