Constraint programming models for integrated container terminal operations

• Published in: European journal of operational research Vol. 286; no. 3; pp. 945 - 962
• Main Authors: Kizilay, Damla, Hentenryck, Pascal Van, Eliiyi, Deniz T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.11.2020
• Subjects: Constraint programming; Container terminal operations; OR in maritime industry; Scheduling; Container terminal operations; Scheduling; OR in maritime industry; Constraint programming
• ISSN: 0377-2217; 1872-6860
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2020.04.025

•First Formulation of the Integrated Port Container Terminal Problem (IPCTP) under realistic constraints.•The IPCTP integrates the joint assignment and scheduling of quay cranes, yard cranes, and yard trucks.•Constraint Programming models are proposed to solve the IPCTP optimally or near optimally.•A two-stage optimization approach is developed to increase solution quality for large IPCTP instances.•Performances of mixed-integer and constraint programming models are compared. Although operations in container terminals are highly interdependent, they are traditionally optimized by decomposing the overall problem into a sequence of smaller sub-problems, each focusing on a single operation. Recent studies, however, have demonstrated the need and potential of optimizing these interdependent operations jointly. This paper proposes the Integrated Port Container Terminal Problem (IPCTP) that considers the joint optimization of quay crane assignment and scheduling, yard crane assignment and scheduling, yard location assignments, and yard truck assignment and scheduling. The IPCTP aims at minimizing the turnover times of the vessels and maximize terminal throughput. It also considers inbound and outbound containers simultaneously and models the safety distance and the interference constraints for the quay cranes. To solve the IPCTP, the paper proposes several constraint programming (CP) models. Computational results show that CP provides exact solutions in acceptable time to IPCTP instances derived from an actual (small) container terminal in Turkey. For hard IPCTP instances, the CP model can be generalized in a two-stage optimization approach to produce high-quality solutions in reasonable times.