Yard template generation for automated container terminal based on bay sharing strategy

In order to decarbonize the increasing container handlings, more and more automated container terminals have been put into operation around the world, which has brought new challenges to the scheduling of container handlings. With the application of advanced technology and equipment, the bottleneck of terminal management has shifted from the quay side to the yard side. Therefore, we put forward a bay sharing strategy to improve the utilization of automated container terminal yard. Based on the bay sharing strategy, a bi-stage mathematical model is formulated to optimize yard space allocation. In the first stage, the shortest transportation distance between blocks and berths and the balanced workload among blocks are two main objectives when determining the allocated number of stacks to each block. In the second stage, we locate the assigned stacks from the first stage to specific bays and make the transportation distance of the automated rail-mounted gantry crane shortest. On this basis, we discuss the yard allocation for automated container terminal through numerical experiments in different scenarios. The research demonstrates that compared with the non-sharing strategy, the bay sharing strategy is more suitable for the space management of the automated container terminal. The capability of automated rail-mounted gantry cranes will directly affect the distribution of stack allocations for each bay, while the advantages of the bay sharing strategy are more competitive for blocks with lower handling efficiency.