A modularized simulation for traffic network in container terminals via network of servers with dynamic rates

There are many design factors affecting the traffic efficiency in an automated container terminal. The traffic efficiency is also dynamically influenced by the nature of the job sequence in the specific container terminal, the number of vehicles deployed, and the respective yard planning strategies. Therefore, it is difficult to analyze such complexity using an analytical queuing model; however, challenges arise in a simulation study such as how to effectively model the impact of the critical design factors as well as the decision rules. In this study, we model the traffic system as a network of servers that represents both paths and junctions, for which the service rates are dynamically adjusted according to the respective states and decision rules. The model is implemented with O
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DES.Net, an open-structured and modularized modeling framework. Numerical experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the developed models, with an application of the AGV network for an automated container terminal.