Optimizing pre-processing and relocation moves in the Stochastic Container Relocation Problem

Bernard G. Zweers*, Sandjai Bhulai, Rob D. van der Mei

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

In container terminals, containers are often moved to other stacks in order to access containers that need to leave the terminal earlier. We propose a new optimization model in which the containers can be moved in two different phases: a pre-processing and a relocation phase. To solve this problem, we develop an optimal branch-and-bound algorithm. Furthermore, we develop a local search heuristic because the problem is NP-hard. Besides that, we give a rule-based method to estimate the number of relocation moves in a bay. The local search heuristic produces solutions that are close to the optimal solution. Finally, for instances in which the benefits of moving containers in the two different phases are in balance, the solution of the heuristic yields significant improvement compared to the existing methods in which containers are only moved in one of the two phases.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)954-971
Number of pages18
JournalEuropean Journal of Operational Research
Volume283
Issue number3
Early online date3 Dec 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Jun 2020

Keywords

  • Branch-and-bound
  • Container pre-marshalling
  • Local search
  • Logistics
  • Stochastic Container Relocation Problem

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