Title: Synergetic operation optimisation of inland ports based on an eM-plant simulation model

Authors: Lei Yang; Zenan Zhang; Zuming Qu

Addresses: School of Economics and Commerce, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China ' School of Economics and Commerce, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China ' School of Economics and Commerce, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China

Abstract: Export-oriented economy is losing steam because of an uncertain outlook for the international economy, which brings back the attention to internal-oriented economy politically. Though holding a balanced status in domestic transportation system, inland ports are still mostly manual operated inefficiently. A huge amount of energy is wasted due to unnecessary delay and low utilisation of equipment. Based on the case of a southern China inland port in Zhaoqing city, this paper introduces the synergetic theory to job scheduling and berth assignment field of the container terminal. An optimisation mathematical model is presented to maximise the synergetic operation rate by rebuilding the time sequence and docking sequence. A genetic algorithm is designed to enhance convergence. We test our mathematical model through an eM-plant simulation model based on the case of Zhaoqing port. The result suggests that synergetic operation could improve operation efficiency and reduce fuel consumption.

Keywords: synergetic theory; terminal handling operations; inland ports; genetic algorithm; eM-plant.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMS.2017.088303

International Journal of Internet Manufacturing and Services, 2017 Vol.4 No.4, pp.303 - 325

Received: 24 Apr 2017
Accepted: 26 Jul 2017
Published online: 01 Dec 2017 *

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