Performance improvements in container terminals through the bottleneck mitigation cycle

Coen H. H. Battum, Bart Wiegmans, Bilge Atasoy (), Erwin Wingerden, Arjen Waal and Lóránt A. Tavasszy
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Coen H. H. Battum: TNO
Bart Wiegmans: Province of Noord-Holland
Bilge Atasoy: Delft University of Technology
Erwin Wingerden: TBA B.V.
Arjen Waal: TBA B.V.
Lóránt A. Tavasszy: Delft University of Technology

Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2023, vol. 25, issue 1, No 7, 174-195

Abstract: Abstract Container terminal capacity is often limited by (in)efficiency bottlenecks. This paper provides the design and proof of concept for the bottleneck mitigation cycle (BMC), consisting of three steps: bottleneck classification, detection and alleviation. While, often, the literature only focuses on alleviation of a single bottleneck and ignores bottleneck detection and interdependencies, this research uses the shifting bottleneck method and thereby considers a variety of possible infrastructural and operational bottlenecks. An empirical approach is adopted to find the cause of the detected bottleneck and to suggest suitable alleviation measures. Application of the BMC to a simulation model of the Fergusson Container Terminal in the Port of Auckland resulted in productivity improvements of 2–6%. To further improve the BMC, future research directions are to improve the empirical approach used for bottleneck alleviation and to apply the BMC in real-time.

Keywords: Bottleneck alleviation; Bottleneck classification; Bottleneck detection; Maritime container terminals; Terminal efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1057/s41278-022-00245-7

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