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An efficient approach for solving yard crane scheduling in a container terminal

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Abstract

An efficient approach for yard crane (YC) scheduling is proposed in this paper. The definition of task group for YC scheduling is proposed. A mixed integer programming (MIP) model is developed. In the model, objective functions are subject to the minimization of the total delay of complete time for all task groups and the minimization of block-to-block movements of YCs. Due to the computational scale of the non-deterministic polynomial (NP) complete problem regarding YC scheduling, a rolling-horizon decision-making strategy is employed to solve this problem, by converting the MIP model into another MIP model in the scheduling of each rolling period. Afterwards, a heuristic algorithm based on modified A* search is developed to solve the converted model and obtain near optimal solution. Finally, the computational experiments are used to examine the performance of the proposed approach for YC scheduling.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Jun-liang He  (何军良) & Wei-min Zhang  (张为民)

  2. Engineering Research Center of Container Supply Chain Technology, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Jun-liang He  (何军良), You-fang Huang  (黄有方) & Wei Yan  (严 伟)

Authors
  1. Jun-liang He  (何军良)
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  2. Wei-min Zhang  (张为民)
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  3. You-fang Huang  (黄有方)
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  4. Wei Yan  (严 伟)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun-liang He  (何军良).

Additional information

Foundation item: the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71101090), the Shanghai Top Academic Discipline Project-Management Science & Engineering, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission Project (Nos. 12ZZ148, 13YZ080 and 14YZ112), the Ministry of Transport Research Projects (No. 2012-329-810-180) and the Shanghai Maritime University Research Project (Nos. 20120102 and 20110019)

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He, Jl., Zhang, Wm., Huang, Yf. et al. An efficient approach for solving yard crane scheduling in a container terminal. J. Shanghai Jiaotong Univ. (Sci.) 18, 606–619 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12204-013-1441-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12204-013-1441-y

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