A simulation-based optimization approach for external trucks appointment scheduling in container terminals

ABSTRACT

In Container Terminals (CTs), many containers are daily delivered by a large number of External Trucks (ETs) which lead to several issues such as long waiting times at gates and yards, harmful emissions, and low productivity of the CTs. To resolve these issues, truck appointment systems are used to schedule appointments of ETs and achieve more balance in CTs’ workload. Most of the studies have focused on deterministic modelling of the ETs’ arrival process with considering yard operations or gate operations. Also, a little effort has been devoted to collaboration between trucking companies and CTs when scheduling ETs’ appointments. Unlike previous studies, this paper presents a simulation-based optimization approach to collaboratively schedule ETs’ appointments with considering yard and gate operations as well as their stochastic natures. The proposed approach integrates a simulation model with an MIP model with objective of minimizing turnaround times of ETs and inconveniences resulting from shifting the arrivals of ETs away from their preferred arrival times. The proposed approach is validated against an approach from literature. In addition, its performance is investigated by solving artificial instances inspired by real data. A framework for implementing the proposed system in the IoT-based container terminals is also developed.

KEYWORDS:

• Container terminal
• truck appointment system
• dynamic
• collaborative
• simulation-based optimization
• Internet of Things (IoT)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ahmed Azab

Ahmed Azab is a PhD student at the department of Information and Physical Sciences, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, Japan. His research interests are about the methods of modelling, optimization and evaluation for more efficient operations of various systems. As an application, he is currently working on real-world problems such as modeling and optimization of maritime container terminal operations. He got his MSc degree in 2017 in Industrial Engineering and Systems management from Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (EJUST).

Ahmed Karam

Ahmed Karam is a research fellow at division of Transportation Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University, Denmark. He received his PhD in industrial engineering and systems management in 2015 from Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (EJUST). His research interests span across supply chain and logistics management with particular focus on applications of operations research and discrete event simulation in freight transportation, container ports, and manufacturing systems.

Amr Eltawil

Amr Eltawil is a professor of Industrial Engineering and the dean of the School of Innovative Design Engineering of the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Alexandria, Egypt. His research interests are in the fields of applied operations research and discrete event simulation. Areas of interest include among others supply chain design and management, production planning and scheduling, service systems planning and management especially container terminal operations and management decisions, energy systems optimization, healthcare applications and call centres, as well as transportation and logistics. He authored more than 80 papers published in international impacted journals and conferences.