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During the last three decades, technological innovations in cargo handling equipment have made it possible to automate operational processes in container terminals. Despite the increasing trend in terminal automation, little work has been done to develop theoretical guidelines for evaluating the benefits of this industrial practice. We assess terminal automation by focusing on whether strategic content and process structure are aligned. In this study, we explore the reasons that these results are mixed in the context of service automation. Have market competitiveness and operational performance been enhanced by automation in seaports? We focus on two key strategic elements and their proper alignment to produce the best performance for a port. The first element is the overall business strategy and strategic content adopted by the port. In this study, we look at Porter's (Competitive strategy, Free Press, New York, 1980) generic strategic classification of low cost, differentiation, or focus strategies. The second element is the process structure of the port, which may have been impacted by technological innovation. Using the framework of contingency theory, we explore the interface of strategic content and process structure and how this interface impacts the service process automation. A multiple case study is conducted on a sample of 20 container terminals, selected from the list of 2014 Journal of Commerce's Top Productive Terminals. We come up with three important findings. First, a port's strategic market position determines the choice of overall business strategy. If a port is strategically positioned as an international gate, then it should adopt an overall cost-leadership strategy, whereas a transshipment terminal should adopt an overall differentiation strategy. Second, we find that the process structure adopted is associated with the level of automation, and a differentiation strategy is dependent on the level of flexibility, speed, and reliability. Higher market uncertainty requires higher flexibility, while lower market uncertainty requires greater speed and reliability. Third, the level of process automation depends on throughput volume and stability. Closer relationships with maritime supply–chain partners help increase throughput volume and reduce throughput uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The port sector has played an important role in global trade, with ports acting as a transportation chain-ring in environmental-social performance improvement. The usage of sea transportation means has spread across the world. Starting with the Kyoto Protocol for ships, the environmentally friendly trend has encompassed the port sector. However, it is difficult to find a model with the same characteristics as those of the ports as the models. The models can be used to compare operational performance regarding carbon dioxide (CO2) emission production. This research aimed to estimate CO2 emissions at container ports to portray how a port deals with its operational matters, using models suitable for ideal circumstances based on available equipment. This calculative system applies a bottom-up calculation of the work activities at a port, treating the amount of fuel consumption not as an input variable, but as the result of the calculation itself. The input variables include throughput, transshipment process, transportation modality, and terminal layout. The results show that several equipment operational activities can be optimized by comparing the calculation results for actual CO2 emissions. It was found that each twenty-foot equivalent unit produced as much as 11.27 kg of CO2 emissions at the Belawan International Container Terminal in Medan, Indonesia. This research has considerable potential use for ports, showing how to calculate CO2 emissions at a port under ideal circumstances, that models in use can be adapted to any port characteristics, and that the data serving as the input variables are not difficult to obtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of the impact of seaports on their direct vicinity has been repeatedly addressed in the academic literature. The developed merits of their impact is mainly related to employment in the port/port cluster, the seaport's share of the municipality's labour market, and the added value produced by the port/port cluster or the volume and structure of uncompensated flows into the municipality's budget on account of the port's operations. This article is aimed at providing an answer to the question of how to evaluate the impact of a new investment project in a seaport on its direct vicinity in a situation of low unemployment in the port's municipality and the dominating tourism function in its economy. The research methodology was based on a single case study of the city of Świnoujście and the seaport in Świnoujście; the dominating economic function of this municipality is tourism. Moreover, it is the location of one of the four seaports with primary significance for the national economy. The development plans for the Szczecin & Świnoujście Seaports Authority include the construction of a deepwater container hub terminal. The investment will have an impact on the local social environment. The results of the conducted research studies are presented in the article both in a traditional approach enumerating the benefits of such an investment project for the local environment, as well as proposing a new approach to the evaluation of its benefits (inter alia, providing employment opportunities for people who so far have been forced to look for jobs outside the municipality and the long-term unemployed, preventing young and educated people from moving out of the municipality, attracting new inhabitants, improving the employment-to-population ratio, and stopping the city's population ageing). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's ports, the storage area is often the bottleneck in the serving of a vessel. It is therefore an important influencing factor in the minimization of the turnaround time of the vessels, which is the main objective in operational planning in container terminals. The operational planning of the yard cranes strongly impacts the yard's efficiency. This planning task comprises the assignment of jobs to cranes, the sequencing of jobs per crane and the scheduling of crane movement and job executions subject to time windows and precedence constraints. A common yard configuration is a block storage system with two identical automated gantry cranes, called twin cranes. These cranes are subject to non-crossing constraints and therefore often exclusively serve either the landside or the seaside of the terminal. A polynomial-time algorithm for the scheduling subproblem of the cranes is introduced. As the sequencing and assignment part of this planning task is NP-hard, the overall problem is solved heuristically with a branch and bound procedure that includes the introduced scheduling algorithm as an evaluation subroutine. A computational study is presented to test the performance of this approach against a mathematical program solved by CPLEX. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the generation of a resilient yard template, which has the property of resilience under storage demand fluctuations. A stochastic programming model is formulated aiming at minimizing the risk of containers without available storage slots being assigned in the designated area. Furthermore, a corresponding particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed for solving the model. Finally, numerical experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and solution approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-increasing worldwide container throughput and the intensified port competition have demanded better terminal operational performance, which is usually measured by the gross crane rate (GCR). In this paper, a multiagent-based simulation model is proposed to investigate how the block length of the storage yard and the tactical-level stacking policy affect the operational performance of non-transshipment container terminals over the long term. Experiments consider seven block lengths, two yard truck fleet sizes and two stacking policies. The results demonstrate that the best block length yielding the highest GCR is dependent on the stacking policy and the yard truck fleet size, and the separate stacking policy is essentially superior to the scattered stacking policy. Specifically, only when 9-yard trucks are deployed per quay crane under the separate stacking policy, can the typical 42-slot block length achieve the highest GCR. Although the experiments are not exhaustive, they do provide the first fundamental insights, with respect to the effects of block lengths and stacking policies, on the long-term performance at a manually controlled non-transshipment container terminal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the problem of inter-terminal movements of containers and vehicles within a port area in order to achieve an integrated and effective transport within the port and towards the hinterland. Containers from different port terminals are first moved to a rail yard and then delivered to the hinterland by rail. To provide insights for stakeholders such as port authority and terminal operators into tactical planning problems, e.g., the coordination between terminals, railway timetable and train sizes, this paper proposes an optimization model describing the movement of containers and various vehicles between and inside terminals. The model aims at improving the container delivery from container terminals to the hinterland considering both railway hinterland transport and terminal handling operations. A network inspired by a real-life port area and its hinterland is used as a test case to test different components, i.e., inter-terminal transport connections, train formation, railway timetable. A rolling horizon framework is used to improve the computation efficiency in large transport demand cases. The result of the optimization helps in identifying the most promising features, namely, that more connections between terminals and a flexible outbound railway timetable could contribute to improving the integrated container transport performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trucking companies deliver a large number of containers every day to container terminals at hub ports. Truck drivers for the delivery operation can experience long waiting times when they arrive at peak hours. This study proposes a scheduling method for appointments that considers the cost of trucks staying in the terminal, demurrage cost, container delivery cost, number of appointments allowed at each time window and block, and number of trucks available during each time window. Unlike previous studies, this study considers the effects of the appointments on the waiting time at the terminal when the appointment schedule is constructed. This paper introduces a mathematical formulation and a heuristic algorithm based on the Frank–Wolfe algorithm to solve the problem within a reasonable computational time. Numerical experiments are conducted to compare the proposed algorithm with the other heuristic approaches and analyze the effects of the appointments using empirical data. In addition, the impact of appointments by multiple trucking companies is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Terminal operators in one port cooperate to defeat competition from external ports. • Terminal operators in one port compete with each other to enhance individual terminal performance. • Coopetition allows overcoming the trade-off between cooperation and competition. • In coopetition, operator incentives change depending on the mix of ownership types. • If authorities support coopetition, terminal operators achieve a win-win strategy. An intra-port coopetition model is proposed, which simultaneously characterizes both competition and cooperation among terminal operators in a port when competing with operators from external ports. Terminal operators make cooperative efforts to increase port competitiveness, while simultaneously making competitive efforts for price adjustment, cost and/or time reduction at individual terminals. Numerical analysis is performed considering private and public terminals characterized by different profit and social surplus maximization objectives. The results show that operator incentives change depending on the combinations of terminal ownership, and the private terminal tends to behave as a free rider in a public-private combination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Dalian University of Technology / Dalian Ligong Daxue Xuebao is the property of Journal of Dalian University of Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Perspectiva Econômica is the property of Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Maritime transport is the sector of the international economy that ensures the transport of people and goods in space. In other words, maritime transport within the global transport system is the economic activity through which trade is made between two points (one being the expedition and the other the destination) situated on land but separated from water. Maritime transport is considered - and rightly so - one of the most important international activities, the study of some aspects related to this Reid also involves the study of the world economy. That is why we can say that this type of transport is very sensitive to the events recorded globally. The operational equipment used in the container terminal is the main means of cargo handling both from the ship to the terminal and vice versa as well as within the storage I transport terminal Of particular importance are the equipment targeted for indoor traffic. Port facilities involve costly investments but are imperative for efficient operation without overloading or neglecting the technical endowment of operators, as happened in some countries that have built new operating capabilities when the old ones were already very crowded or on the contrary, as long as they did not have the optimal load. All means of exploitation must be carefully calculated and should not lead to high economic costs for operators who have incorrectly operated or poorly maintained port facilities. The cost of these installations is generally not invoiced to the infrastructure user, and it is mainly borne from selffinancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract To reduce CO 2 emissions, the Chinese government has established a carbon emissions trading scheme, with industrial enterprises being allocated free emissions quotas and buying permits on the carbon market for over-quota emissions. Enterprises, including container terminals, must also progressively reduce their carbon emissions intensities and will be affected by the costs associated with reducing emissions as well as by carbon trading expenses. Therefore, in this study, the costs of carbon reduction (e.g., equipment changes, management interventions, and carbon trading) are calculated, and a nonlinear programming model is developed to formulate an optimal strategy of measures for a terminal enterprise to meet its statutory emissions-reduction target while minimizing the associated expenditure. In addition, the specific effect of carbon trading (using the free emissions quota percentage or FEQP and the carbon trading price or CTP) on a terminal's optimal emissions-reduction strategy is examined. Using the case of Nansha terminal over a five-year period, the model results show that under the current FEQP and CTP, the carbon trading expenses constitute only 0.1% of the total expenditure on carbon-reduction measures. Therefore, the current values of the FEQP and CTP provide very little incentive for terminals to reduce emissions. Sensitivity analysis shows that under a decreasing FEQP, the terminal's expenses increase linearly but the emissions amount decreases stepwise. An increase in the CTP from 40 to 190 Yuan/t increases the terminal's expenses linearly and decreases its emissions stepwise, but emissions show no further decrease for a CTP of 190–370 Yuan/t. The findings have implications for policy-making as well as for terminals' carbon-reduction strategies and costs. Highlights • Develop a model for the optimal carbon-reduction strategy for container terminals. • Model analyzes effect of China's emissions trading scheme (ETS) on enterprise costs. • China's ETS gives insufficient incentive for enterprises to reduce carbon emissions. • Study effect of free emissions quota percentage (FEQP) and carbon trading price (CTP). • China's ETS should be divided into stages based on identified values of FEQP and CTP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a tactical-level plan, the yard template determines the space allocation in a container terminal yard for all the arriving shipping liners. Generally speaking, the yard template will not change and it may last a matter of years. However, it has to be changed to response to the alteration of shipping liner. This paper investigates the problem of yard template regeneration for container port, which contains multiple container terminals. Firstly, the concept of yard template regeneration as well as the main influencing factors is proposed. Secondly, a multiple-objective mixed integer programming model is formulated which fully considering the minimum transportation cost, minimum template disturbance and maximum space utilization. Moreover, a case study is conducted to intuitively illustrate the regeneration problem of yard template. Finally, performance analysis and sensitivity analysis are performed to validate the effectiveness of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important part of container logistics, quay cranes (QCs) are crucial equipment in multimodal container transportation. The scheduling and allocation of QCs determine the operational efficiency of container terminals. By analyzing the way quay cranes are operated, this paper establishes a mixed-integer dynamic rolling-horizon programming model for the scheduling and allocation of QCs and proposes use of a genetic algorithm and two improved firefly algorithms based on segment encoding technology to formulate an optimum QC scheduling scheme. In doing so, the improved approach has made QC control more efficient and balanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maritime freight transport represents an effective solution, allowing to ensure a low-impact service both under an economic and a sustainable perspective. As a consequence, in the last ten years, an increasing trend of goods transported by sea has been observed. In order to improve the terminal containers' performance, recently published scientific studies shown the applicability of the 'lean logistic' concept as a strategic key for ensuring a continuous improvement of the logistic chain for inter-/intra terminal containers' activities. According to this approach, the adoption of a dry port can positively affect terminal containers' performance, but this requires resources and investments due to inter-terminal activities (e.g. transport of the container from port to dry port and vice versa). The purpose of the study is to develop a mathematical programming optimization model to support the decision making in identifying the best containers' handling strategy for intermodal facilities, according to lean and green perspectives. Numerical experiments shown the effectiveness of the model in identifying efficient material handling strategies under lean and green perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of a container terminal (CT) closely deals with the efficiency of operating systems. This paper proposed a model to decide optimum investment alternatives to improve CT productivity. The proposed approach incorporates the parameters such as number of quay cranes, total length of a quay, yard trucks and yard cranes. The objectives of the model are minimizing the average ship turnaround time while maximizing the container throughput generated by the terminal. The methodology behind the model includes Discrete Event Simulation Model, data envelopment analysis (DEA) and cost-efficiency analysis. Considering container ship visits to Container Terminal Alpha (CT-A), the proposed model is demonstrated with 16 different investment scenario along with 10-months recorded operational data. The results addressed the Scenario LENG-2 (extent current total length of quays from 1.560 meters to 2.000 meters) as the optimal feasible solution for an investment in existing conditions. The model is also considered to besides contributions to investment decisions in CT, the developed framework might be extended to other transportation infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Container shipping route selection strategy has become an important component in attracting additional cargo volumes and increasing terminal competitiveness of small and medium ports (SMPs). Shipping route selection relies upon decisions based on real industry data and expert judgments. There is scant research that places emphasis on container shipping route selection as a vital aspect of SMPs. This paper bridges the gap by utilizing Consistent Fuzzy Preference Relations (CFPR) methodology, which handles both qualitative and quantitative factors in order to select optimal routes for SMPs. Donghae port, which is located on the east coast of South Korea, is analyzed as a case study. The results illustrate that volume commitment ranks first among the 19 established selection factors, followed by incentive system risk and head-haul ratio. This study also reveals that Donghae-Hochiminh is the optimal route for the Donghae port, while the container shipping route of Donghae-Port Kelang is ranked in the middle, and Donghae-Jakarta is considered to be the least optimal route amongst the three alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a methodology for delimiting the potential hinterland of container terminals that consists in calculating the minimum generalised costs from load centers to different container terminals, using one of a set of possible intermodal or unimodal transportation solutions. Generalised costs include transportation costs, handling costs and transit time costs. The models of the transportation infrastructure network (roads, railway lines, ports, intermodal terminals) and of transportation and handling costs are described, including the definition of nonlinear unitary transportation costs. The methodology and models are implemented in a computer code and applied in a case study focused on the characterization of container terminal potential hinterlands across the western Iberian Peninsula. The results allow the identification of the main hinterland of different terminals in a multi-port system and the analysis of the effects of intermodal terminals in promoting a regionalization process, enabling the characterization of 'island formations'. A hinterland contestability index is proposed and used to evaluate the degree of competition between container terminals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The truck allocation problem based on double cycling is introduced to increase the handling efficiency and service availability in container terminals. The terminal operation system is regarded as a service network and a queueing network model based on double cycling is proposed. The service process of trucks is described and the service availability of the terminal handling system with different resource allocation is analyzed. Based on the analysis, the bottleneck operation which restricts the whole terminal handling efficiency is revealed. An optimization model considering the waiting time of trucks and the utilization of equipment is developed. The goal of the model is to optimize the truck allocation with minimum terminal operation cost. To solve the model, an algorithm is designed. The relationship between the terminal efficiency and the allocation of quay cranes, trucks and yard cranes from the service network's view is shown. And a reference for the equipment scheduling and service designing in container terminals is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Due to both the rapid growth of world and the expansion of the flow of container shipment, a maritime container terminal plays a vital role in global coverage of supply chain. In this market, because shipping is growing fast, container terminals should be able to serve the vessels in the shortest possible time. Alternatively, the limited availability of operational facilities, such as internal trucks, makes servicing more complicated in container terminals. Therefore, this study aimed to integrate the assignment of quay cranes in container terminals and internal truck sharing assignment among them. For this purpose, a bi-objective optimization model is developed. In the proposed model, several assignment phases, including the assignments of the vessel to container terminals, cranes to terminals, cranes to vessels and trucks to cranes are performed. The model also seeks to increase and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of internal trucks by sharing them among different terminals, so that there is an appropriate balance between the volume of workloads of the terminals and the trucks in question. The first objective function in the proposed model seeks to minimize operational costs and the second objective function seeks to minimize the maximum overflowed workload in the terminals. Furthermore, in order to solve the proposed model, two meta-heuristic multi-objective algorithms, including modified non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (MNSGA-II) and modified multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MMOPSO) are presented. Several numerical examples have been investigated and analyzed to show the accuracy of the proposed model and the methods. In addition, the results demonstrated that the simultaneous consideration of the assignments and the sharing of trucks would reduce the remaining workload in the terminals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The main contribution of this paper is to determine the allocation strategy of on-shore power supply (OPS), comprising additional power capacity of OPS and adopting patterns of OPS at berth, to realize the trade-off between total cost of OPS and carbon emissions of ships. Firstly, carbon emission formulations, adopting patterns of OPS and arrival patterns of ships are described. Then, in order to minimize total cost and carbon emissions, an integer programming model for OPS allocation problem is proposed. Next, a simulation-based solution method is developed to resolve the optimization model, which consists of inner simulation module and outer optimization module. The outer module enumerates all the allocation scenarios and evaluates the results from the inner module. The inner module introduces a simulation model to represent the stochastic operation system in the container terminal and outputs results to outer module. Finally, taking a port in China as an example, this paper designs and conducts a series of experiments and discovers that the sensitivity of results emphasizes the importance of electricity price on the optimal allocation. When electricity price is lower or larger than 0.3 $/kWh, the optimal power capacity is 9200 or 5230 kW, correspondingly. Highlights • This paper analyzes environment benefits of OPS system adopted in ports from perspective of life-cycle energy consumption. • This paper aims at solving the problem of how to determine the allocation strategy of OPS to realize the trade-off between carbon emissions and system cost of OPS. • In order to minimize total cost and carbon emissions, an optimization model for OPS allocation problem is proposed, and a simulation-based solution method to resolve the optimization model is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Port traffic network design is different from urban traffic flow. Port truck congestion, one of the critical port traffic network design problems, is discussed in this paper. To alleviate the truck congestion in container terminals, issues of modeling truck congestion pricing are addressed. A bi-level programming model is developed to determine the optimal toll rates. The upper level model is to minimize the average truck waiting time by optimizing toll rates of different periods. The lower level is user equilibrium model in which each truck driver chooses its arrival time according to the toll strategy of upper level model. The feedback of upper-level and lower-level model forms the optimal toll strategy. To solve the model, a method based on memetic heuristic is designed. Finally, numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the validity of the proposed model and algorithm. Results indicate that congestion toll can decrease truck's queuing time effectively. The developed toll pricing model reflects the benefit of truckers and terminal operators, which promotes the use of toll as an efficient tool to alleviate the truck congestion and improve the terminal efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At container terminals, many cargo handling processes are interconnected and occur in parallel. Within short time windows, many operational decisions need to be made and should consider both time efficiency and equipment utilization. During operation, many sources of disturbance and, thus, uncertainty exist. For these reasons, perfectly coordinated processes can potentially unravel. This study analyzes simulation-based optimization, an approach that considers uncertainty by means of simulation while optimizing a given objective. The developed procedure simultaneously scales the amount of utilized equipment and adjusts the selection and tuning of operational policies. Thus, the benefits of a simulation study and an integrated optimization framework are combined in a new way. Four meta-heuristics—Tree-structured Parzen Estimator, Bayesian Optimization, Simulated Annealing, and Random Search—guide the simulation-based optimization process. Thus, this study aims to determine a favorable configuration of equipment quantity and operational policies for container terminals using a small number of experiments and, simultaneously, to empirically compare the chosen meta-heuristics including the reproducibility of the optimization runs. The results show that simulation-based optimization is suitable for identifying the amount of required equipment and well-performing policies. Among the presented scenarios, no clear ranking between meta-heuristics regarding the solution quality exists. The approximated optima suggest that pooling yard trucks and a yard block assignment that is close to the quay crane are preferable.

In this paper, a calculation method system of air pollutant emission inventory of port operation machinery in container terminal is established. Through the special investigation of port machinery manufacturers and engine manufacturers, the average load rate data of main port machinery engines in domestic container terminals are obtained. Taking a domestic container terminal as an example, the dynamic method and fuel consumption method are used to calculate the air pollutant emission inventory of port operation machinery, and the calculation results of the two methods are compared and analyzed. The results show that the calculation method system of air pollutant emission inventory of port operation machinery established in this paper is highly practical, and the calculation results obtained by the two methods are very close.

In the service industry, the regular assessment of service quality is considered as a means of promoting the quality of services. Container market is no exception, and the quality of providing service in a container terminal is of prime importance in attracting new customers and maintaining the existing ones. The main aim of present research is to evaluate the quality of service being offered at Shahid Rajaee Container Terminal (SRCT) in Bandar Abbas port. The evaluation process uses SERVQUAL model which is an appropriate tool for measuring the service quality, identifying and analyzing available gaps between service expectations and perceptions. Target population in this research includes customers of SRCT. The standard and customized questionnaires were distributed among 165 samples, out of which 127 (77%) were returned. For the purpose of data analyses, initially the reliability of SERVQUAL model was checked, and then paired sample t-test was performed to reveal any possible gap between expectations and perceptions of respondents. Finally, TOPSIS was used to rank the 9 main container service companies in the SRCT. The results indicated that there are significant gaps between customers’ expectations and perceptions in SRCT, in all five dimensions of services quality. Additionally, from weighing point of view, ‘Tangibles’ was the most important dimension, followed by ‘Reliability’, ‘Assurance’, ‘Responsiveness’ and ‘Empathy’. In addition, ‘Tangibles’ dimension had maximum gap and ‘Empathy’ dimension had minimum gap between customers’ expectations and perceptions. Finally, after ranking companies, BandarAbbas Aria Container Terminal (BACT) Company was ranked first among nine companies in satisfying customers’ expectations.

The objective of this study is to derive implications required for efficiency improvement and management level enhancement by selecting container terminals within major large ports of Korea and China as comparison units, evaluating their relative efficiencies and analyzing the trend of changes in their efficiencies. Since the scope of comparison subjects has been narrowed down to container terminals unlike previous studies, it is expected that the study results would have significant meaning due to the fact that it would be possible to compare and analyze in more detail. To achieve the objective, 30 major container terminals in both countries are selected, input and output variables are defined for each terminal and the DEA (data envelopment analysis) model is used to conduct an analysis. The results show that the efficiency of major terminals in Korea (CCR: 0.815, BCC: 0.886) showed similar efficiency with China's terminals (CCR: 0.817, BCC: 0.887). While previous studies conclude that the efficiency of ports in Korea is far lower than that of ports in China.

As the competition among international container terminals has become increasingly fierce, every port is striving to maintain the competitive edge and provide satisfactory services to port users. By virtue of information technology enhancement, many efforts to raise port competitiveness through an advanced operation system are actively being made, and judging from the viewpoint of investment effect, these efforts are more preferable than infrastructure expansion and additional equipment acquisition. Based on simulation, this study has tried to prove that RFID-based real-time location system (RTLS) data collection and dynamic operation of transfer equipment brings a positive effect on the productivity improvement and resource utilization enhancement. Moreover, this study on the demand for the real-time data for container terminal operation have been made, and operation processes have been redesigned along with the collection of related data, and based on them, simulations have been conducted. As a result of them, much higher productivity improvement could be expected.

Stowage planning is the core of ship planning. It directly influences the seaworthiness of container ship and the handling efficiency of container terminal. As the latter step of container ship stowage plan, terminal stowage planning optimizes terminal cost according to pre-plan. Group-Bay stowage planning is the smallest sub problem of terminal stowage planning problem. A group-bay stowage planning model is formulated to minimize relocation, crane movement and target weight gap satisfying both ship owner and container terminal. A GA-A* hybrid algorithm is designed to solve this problem. Numerical experiment shown the validity and the efficiency.

Vietnam has been one of Asia's fastest growing economies since 1990, with a steady growth of 6-8 percent. Vietnam's container port throughput volume also increases impressively year by year, at around 6-8 percent since 2002. To cope with increasing cargo volume, the development of modernized container terminals in Northern Vietnam has intensified. This longitudinal study aims to identify the development of the system and, in particular, the concentration or deconcentration tendencies, as well as the geographical patterns from 2005 to 2014. In order to achieve the study's objectives, the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), concentration ratios (CR1, CR3), the Gini coefficient, the Lorenz curve, and shift-share analysis (SSA) were applied based on container throughput volume data from 2005 to 2014. The results demonstrate that the development of container terminals in Northern Vietnam has experienced a deconcentration trend and considerable shifting among its terminals during the period of observation. The proposed and validated research is original as it is the first study of concentration, deconcentration, and geographical patterns for container terminals in Northern Vietnam. The findings will enable port authorities, policy makers, and port operators to understand the development and changes of container terminal systems in Northern Vietnam more clearly.

The combination between the design and project of container terminals and the reflect on port’s economy may be carried out through two main approaches: optimization or simulation. Although the approaches based on optimization models allow a more elegant and compact formulation of the problem, simulation models are mainly based on discrete event simulation (DES) models and help to achieve several aims: then measure this impact on port economy before and after implemented this updating overcome mathematical limitations of optimization approaches, support and make computer-generated strategies/policies more understandable, and support decision makers in daily decision processes through a “what if” approach. Several applications of DES models have been proposed and simulation results confirm that such an approach is quite effective at simulating container terminal operations. Most of the contributions in the literature develop object oriented simulation models and pursue a macroscopic approach which gathers elementary handling activities (e.g. using cranes, reach stackers, shuttles) into a few macro-activities (e.g. unloading vessels: crane-dock-reach stacker-shuttle-yard), simulate the movement of an “aggregation” of containers and therefore do not take into account the effects of container types (e.g. 20’ vs 40’, full vs empty), the incidence of different handling activities that may seem similar but show different time duration and variability/dispersion (e.g. crane unloading a container to dock or to a shuttle) and the differences within the same handling activity (e.g. stacking/loading/unloading time with respect to the tier number). Such contributions primarily focus on modeling architecture, on software implementation issues and on simulating design/real scenarios. Activity duration is often assumed to be deterministic, and those few authors that estimate specific stochastic handling equipment models do not clearly state how they were calibrated, what data were used and what the parameter Values are. Finally, no one investigates the effects of different modeling hypotheses on the simulation of container terminal performances. The focus of this paper is on the effects that different hypotheses on handling equipment models calibration may have on the simulation (discrete event) of container terminal performances. Such effects could not be negligible and should be investigated with respect to different planning horizons, such as strategic or tactical. The aim is to propose to analysts, modelers and practitioners a sort of a guideline useful to point out the strengths or weaknesses of different approaches. Drawing on the model architecture which will be affected on port economics.