PHD THESIS DEFENSE: “INTEGRATING THE OPTIMIZATION OF QUAY AND YARD OPERATIONS IN CONTAINER TERMINALS” BY DAMLA KIZILAY

PhD Thesis Defense: “Integrating the Optimization of Quay and Yard Operations in Container Terminals” by Damla Kızılay on December 7, 2018 Friday at 10.00 at T623

Abstract:

Although operations in container terminals are highly interdependent, they are traditionally optimized by decomposing the overall problem into a sequence of smaller subproblems, each of which focuses on a single operation. Recent studies, however, have demonstrated the need and potential of optimizing these interdependent operations jointly. This thesis proposes the integrated port container terminal problem that considers the joint optimization of quay crane assignment and scheduling, yard crane assignment and scheduling, and yard location assignments. The proposed problem minimizes vessel turnover times and maximizes the terminal throughput, which are key economic drivers in terminal operations. It also considers inbound and outbound containers simultaneously and models safety distance and interference constraints between quay cranes. To solve the integrated problem, the thesis proposes MIP and CP models as well as a heuristic algorithm. Computational results show that the MIP model only solves small instances, while the CP model finds optimal solutions in reasonable times for realistic instances derived from an actual container terminal operations in Turkey. The CP model is also be generalized into a goal-programming approach to minimize the number of yard trucks in a second stage. Also, an adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic is employed to obtain solutions in short CPU times and to improve some cases in which the CP model cannot find optimal results. Overall, the heuristic algorithm is performing well for the problem and is very competitive with the exact models.

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Deniz Türsel Eliiyi