Title: Hybrid approach for container terminals performances evaluation and analysis

Authors: Letizia Nicoletti; Alessandro Chiurco; Carlos Arango; Rafael Diaz

Addresses: DIMEG, University of Calabria, Cosenza 87036, Italy ' DIMEG, University of Calabria, Cosenza 87036, Italy ' Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain ' Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA

Abstract: Turnaround time, defined as the total time spent by a vessel within the port area, is one of the most important key performance measures for a container terminal. In this paper, the authors propose a hybrid approach based on simulation and genetic algorithms to investigate vessels' turnaround time in a real container terminal under different scenarios characterised by increases in containers traffic and vessels traffic. The authors show how a modular simulation model integrated with optimisation algorithms can be used as an advanced support tool to identify resources capacity constraints and to identify how such constraints affect the vessels' turnaround time.

Keywords: container terminals; modelling; simulation; decision making; performance evaluation; terminal performance; genetic algorithms; container ports; vessel turnaround time; optimisation; resource capacity; capacity constraints.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPM.2014.061464

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2014 Vol.9 No.1/2, pp.104 - 112

Received: 25 Feb 2013
Accepted: 06 Feb 2014
Published online: 11 Oct 2014 *

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