Local Sequence-Cut Method for AGV Dispatching Problem at Automated Container Terminals with Tandem Lift Quay Cranes

摘要

The dispatching problem of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) between seaside quay cranes and landside yard cranes is a critical operation at container terminals. This paper provides a mixed integer linear program for the problem with tandem lift quay cranes and proposes a new method, called Local Sequence-Cut (LSC), to solve the problem. As opposed to most conventional heuristics which pass a local solu- tion during iteration, the LSC method is capable of reducing decision variable space very e ectively through constructing local sub-problems and updating time bounds for container delivery to determine cut-o delivery sequences. Series of numerical experiments show the capability of the new LSC method to nd near-optimal so- lutions in substantially reduced CPU time compared to conventional commercial software.