Berth Allocation in an Indented Type of Container Terminal

Abstract

Many container ports with heavy traffic in the world serve as Dedicated Terminals to specific shipping lines. On the hand, there is another type of container terminal, operating as Common User Terminals or also known as Multi-User Terminals, which are mostly state-owned in developing countries while privately-owned in developed countries. Most of these terminals use the First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) principle for their daily operations. This study addresses a berth allocation problem of minimizing the total service time (including ship's waiting time for berth availability and ship's handling time at a berth) with flexible allocation of ships to berths ignoring the FCFS rule. The problem we consider is characterized by the setting that multiple ships may be served at a particular berth when the physical relationship between ship's and berth's lengths is satisfied. In this study, we develop a smpler formulation for the berth allocation in a Multi-User Terminals with an indented berths for fast handling of mega-container ships.