Integrating truck arrival management into tactical operation planning at container terminals

Truck arrival management (TAM) has been recognized as an effective solution to alleviate the gate congestion at container terminals. To further utilize TAM in improving the overall terminal performance, this study integrates TAM with the other terminal operations at a tactical level. An integrated planning model and a sequential planning model are presented to coordinate the major terminal planning activities, including quayside berth allocation, yard storage space allocation and TAM. A heuristic-based genetic algorithm is developed to solve the models. A range of numerical examinations are performed to compare two planning models. The result shows that: the integrated model can improve the terminal performance significantly from the sequential model alone, particularly when the gate capacity and the yard capacity are relatively low; whereas the sequential model is more efficient than the integrated model in terms of computational time.