Scheduling Multiple Yard Cranes with Crane Interference and Safety Distance Requirement

Yong Wu (), Wenkai Li (), Matthew E. H. Petering (), Mark Goh () and Robert de Souza ()
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Yong Wu: Department of International Business and Asian Studies, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Southport, QLD 4222, Australia
Wenkai Li: Graduate School of International Management, International University of Japan, Niigata 949-7277, Japan
Matthew E. H. Petering: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53211
Mark Goh: NUS Business School and The Logistics Institute–Asia Pacific, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119245; and School of Business Information Technology and Logistics, and Platform Technologies Research Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
Robert de Souza: The Logistics Institute–Asia Pacific, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119613

Transportation Science, 2015, vol. 49, issue 4, 990-1005

Abstract: Container terminals require robust scheduling algorithms for yard cranes to optimally determine the sequence of storage and retrieval operations in yard blocks for higher container terminal performance. This paper investigates the multiple yard crane scheduling problem within a generic yard block and considers the operational restrictions such as the crane noncrossing constraint and models the crane travel time realistically. Further, the fact that any two adjacent cranes must keep an operational safety distance is also taken into consideration. These physical constraints limit the mobility of yard cranes and greatly render the scheduling difficulty for such pieces of equipment.This paper proposes a clustering-reassigning approach, which fully considers all of the operational constraints in practice. The complexity of the approach is o ( n 3 ), where n is the number of container moves to be scheduled, making it suitable for real-time scheduling. Numerical experiments and benchmark with a continuous time-based mixed-integer linear programming model indicate that the clustering-reassigning approach can provide satisfactory near optimal solutions for different sets of test cases in a real-time scheduling context.

Keywords: crane scheduling; heuristics; container yard; crane interference; safety distance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:49:y:2015:i:4:p:990-1005

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