Vehicle Distance Threshold for Quayside Operations of Container Terminals

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

In container terminal quayside operations, vehicles play a vital role in shuttling containers between the quay and the yard. The problem of determining the vehicle fleet size to employ consists of determining the exact order of moves and the vehicles to perform these moves, but due to the stochastic nature of daily operations, the planned order of moves is unlikely to be followed. The only decision that remains constant for vehicles in quayside operations is the number of vehicles to employ. Container terminal operators would benefit from analytical methods that provide feedback into how quayside operations will perform for different vehicle fleet sizes under stochastic conditions. This thesis discusses the development of an analytical method called vehicle distance threshold for providing feedback for quayside operations of container terminals. The vehicle distance threshold provides insight into how different vehicle fleet size affects container terminal performance. In addition simulation studies are conducted to show the applicability and the robustness of the vehicle distance threshold. The results show that the vehicle distance threshold is able to provide insight into how the quayside operations will perform under different vehicle fleet sizes while being robust to delays and changes that occur in daily operations.