Scheduling unloading operations in a railway terminal

This paper deals with the problem of minimizing the completion time of unloading containers from a train in the logistical platform MITA in Casablanca/Morocco. The main objective is to solve a real-world optimization problem. We present three different approaches: the first one is a two-step procedure that starts by assigning containers to storage places and then solves a classical machine scheduling problem. The second one is global, in the sense that it considers simultaneously the assignment and the scheduling problems. Finally, the third one assigns containers to storage places under a discrete time mathematical formulation. To test the performance of the proposed models, numerical tests on small and pseudo-real instances are conducted and analysed. The results show the good quality of the obtained solutions.