Heuristic/Metaheuristic-Based Simulation Optimization Approaches for Integrated Scheduling of Yard Crane, Yard Truck, and Quay Crane Considering Import and Export Containers

Yard cranes (YCs), yard trucks (YTs), and quay cranes (QCs) are the main material handling equipment (MHE) used to fulfill Yard Storage Plan (YSP) and Vessel Stowage plan (VSP) in a traditional container terminal. However, previous studies have often considered part of these MHE, with either import or export containers being neglected simultaneously. Such studies at most can only achieve local optimality which in a worst-case scenario can cause bottleneck(s) in the downstream operations. In addition, it is noted that the YSP, VSP, and their constraints have been often neglected in previous studies. Such negligence can cause operational problems. To best operate a container terminal, it needs to address the above issues. Our literature review shows that exact methods have difficulty solving a problem of big size to optimality due to NP-hard, thus alternative approaches are still required. Simulation-based optimization approaches are found with the potential to deal with container terminal problems. However, software for the integration of simulation and optimization effectively is found unavailable. In this research, different simulation-based optimization approaches, based on a simulation-based optimization framework (HSBOF), have been developed. These approaches help to schedule YCs, YTs, and QCs in handling both import and export containers for a ship in a traditional container terminal, taking YSP, VSP, and their constraints into consideration. Various heuristics/metaheuristics have been employed in the HSBOF as a sequencing method to arrange alternative operational sequences of containers. The results show that the Simulation(ISFLA) has the best performance.