Sequencing delivery and receiving operations for yard cranes in port container terminals

In port container terminals, the amount of delay time of outside trucks in the receiving and delivery operations is one of the important measures for the evaluation of the level of customer service. A dynamic programming model is suggested for a static sequencing problem in which all the arrivals of trucks are known in advance. For dynamic situations where new trucks arrive continuously, a learning-based method for deriving decision rules is suggested. Also, several heuristic rules are suggested. A simulation study is performed to compare the performances of the suggested approaches. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.