A two stage yard crane workload partitioning and job sequencing algorithm for container terminals

We propose a new YC workload partitioning scheme which employs dynamic data driven simulations to conduct what-if experiments in container terminals. Both the optimal partition of the workload in a row of yard blocks and the optimal dispatching sequences for individual YCs are achieved. The practical consideration of the safety constraints is included. A dynamic programming (DP) approach is used to avoid re-computation. An efficient two stage workload partition algorithm (TSWP) is proposed which successfully reduces the number of full what-if simulations while maintaining solution optimality. An effective lower bound (LB) generator with adjustable LB accuracy is designed in supporting the TSWP algorithm. Experimental results show that the TSWP algorithm outperforms the pure DP approach in all tested scenarios and takes less than 1 part per thousand computational time of the DP approach.

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