Simulation Study on Layout of Separate Lock Station in Automated Container Terminal

Lock station layout affects the efficiency of automated container terminal operations. For this reason, a lock station layout strategy must be studied to solve the problem. In this work, based on the traditional lock station layout strategy, we propose a separate lock station layout strategy in which the lock station, QC (Quay Crane) and yard are physically isolated, and the lock station no longer occupies the lane of QC operation area. The simulation results demonstrates that the separated lock station layout strategy can reduce the average waiting time of ART (Artificial Intelligence Robot of Transportation) at the lock station by 99%, and increase the lock station utilization by 22%, which has good practical application value, compared with the traditional method.