The Application Research of Container Berth Allocation Based on Ant Colony Algorithms

At container terminal, it is critical to improve the berth to utilization efficiency, shorten the waiting time of ships at ports, and decrease the operation cost under the condition of limited shoreline resources. Based on the study and analysis of the characteristic about the port service system, related assumptions are proposed and the mathematics model of dynamic allocating the berth and quay cranes is formulated under the objective of the shortest waiting time for container ships in port. Based on the similarities of berth allocation and ant foraging path selection, parallel ant colony algorithm based on pheromone is proposed. Experimental results show that algorithm can be applied effectively to optimize berth allocation problem (BAP).