Yard trailer routing at a maritime container terminal

• Published in: Transportation research. Part E, Logistics and transportation review Vol. 41; no. 1; pp. 53 - 76
• Main Authors: Nishimura, Etsuko, Imai, Akio, Papadimitriou, Stratos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Exeter Elsevier India Pvt Ltd 2005; Elsevier; Elsevier Sequoia S.A
• Series: Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review
• Subjects: Cargo handling; Cargos; Container transportation; Container transportation Vehicle routing Cargo handling Heuristic Mathematical programming; Containers; Cost control; Cost reduction; Experiments; Heuristic; Maritime industry; Mathematical programming; Routing; Studies; Transportation terminals; Vehicle routing; Vehicle routing; Container transportation; Cargo handling; Heuristic; Mathematical programming
• ISSN: 1366-5545; 1878-5794
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tre.2003.12.002

This paper addresses the trailer routing problem at a maritime container terminal, where yard trailers are normally assigned to specific quay cranes until the work is finished. A more efficient trailer assignment method called “dynamic routing” is proposed. A heuristic was developed and a wide variety of computational experiments were conducted. The results of the experiments demonstrated that the dynamic routing reduces travel distance and generates substantial savings in the trailer fleet size and overall cost (15% reduction). The paper's contribution to the literature is the development of a new routing scheme achieving container handling cost savings for a terminal.