Analysis and Modeling of Container Terminals Operations

This paper presents a modeling tool to evaluate the impact of different operating strategies for internal transport in a container terminal. This type of movements may be divided into three stages: load/unload, containers' movement, and containers' storage; different types of vehicles are used to handle a container from the wharf to the storage yard. An analytical model based on queuing theory was developed, which incorporates technical attributes, such as number of yard tractors, queue configuration, speed, cranes' configuration and speed, and terminal layout. The model allows the estimation of the terminal efficiency as a function of the container transference capacity of each element of the system and variations in any of the above mentioned technical attributes.