Transshipment of containers at a container terminal: An overview

At container terminals, containers are transshipped from one mode of transportation to another. Within a terminal different types of material handling equipment are used to transship containers from ships to barges, trucks and trains and vice versa. Over the past decades, ships have strongly increased in size, up to 8000 TEU (Twenty feet equivalent unit container). In order to use these big ships efficiently, the docking time at the port must be as small as possible. This means that large amounts of containers have to be loaded, unloaded and transshipped in a short time span, with a minimum use of expensive equipment. This paper gives a classification of the decision problems that arise at container terminals. For various decision problems, an overview of relevant literature is presented. Quantitative models from this literature, which try to solve the problems, are discussed. Finally, some general conclusions and subjects for further research are given.