Scheduling of two-transtainer systems for loading outbound containers in port container terminals with simulated annealing algorithm

This paper discusses the scheduling problem of two-transtainer systems. The problem is to schedule two transtainers which serve the loading operations of one quay crane at two different container blocks so as to minimize the total loading time at stack area. In the problem both the container bay visiting sequences and the number of containers picked up at each visit of the two transtainers are determined simultaneously. A mathematical model is provided to formulate the problem and a simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is developed to solve the proposed model. Numerical experiments are conducted to test the performance of the proposed SA algorithm. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.