Giovanni Luca Pirovano

Due to the increase in the global volume of transport of containerized goods, container terminal management is a critical issue. The process that consists of bringing a train inside a terminal, unloading export containers, reloading the train with importa containers and moving off all containers from the train yard to the stacking yard and vice versa, is of main importance in determining the efficiency of container terminals. Given its complex nature, simulation-based approaches are needed for supporting decision making on this process. This paper presents a simultaion model to gain some insights useful when choosing the number of trailers, the number of tractors, the trailer priority and the crane movement in a container terminal performing train loading and unloading. The simulation software used id Enterprise dynamics. The model represents the container terminal altenwerder, in the port of Hamburg (Germany). The model has been used to analyse the performance, i.e. train process time, of different scenarios, where different strategies for processing trains (in terms of crane movementand trailers priority), and number of trailers and tractors were modelled. A simulation campaign has been performed and results analysed through main effect charts and analysis of variance (ANOVA).