Improving container terminal efficiency through emulation

Container terminals are struggling with a continuously increasing volume and increasing performance demands. As space is typically limited, terminals are searching for solutions to increase throughput capacity without expanding their physical footprint. Furthermore, they aim to increase their productivity on vessels in order to be able to handle bigger ships with larger call sizes in the same time frame. A terminal operating system (TOS) plays a major role in today's terminal operations, as it supports planning, scheduling and equipment control. Recently more and more tasks are performed by the TOS. These tasks need to be well-tuned to the operation (such as stowage planning, grounding decisions and equipment dispatching) in order to reduce cost and risk. In this paper, we present a meanwhile proven, safe and inexpensive approach to test and tweak the TOS and train operators on an emulated virtual terminal. This novel approach in the field of container terminals has been successfully applied during the previous 3 years at over 15 container terminals. Journal of Simulation (2012) 6, 267-278. doi:10.1057/jos.2012.10; published online 15 June 2012