Effect of Terminal Layouts on the Performance of Marine Terminals for Mega-containerships

The appearance of over 10,000 TEU containerships (so called Mega-containerships) is determined. In order to operate these ships effectively, the number of these calling ports will diminish, and then feeder ships will transport cargoes from the hub-ports where mega-containerships call to the destination ports. In the hub-ports, handling containers for mega-containerships become huger, thus it is important for terminals to deal with cargo handling as soon as possible. However, the present terminal layout might have the limitation of maximum throughput per time unit. And then the transit time at the ports become longer. Therefore, we investigate the effect on some different terminal layouts with new alternatives. Actually, we discuss the ship-to-berth allocation at some adjacent berths for mega-containerships on three types of terminal layouts. First one is the conventional type consisted by some linear berths, most container terminals in the world are normally this type. Second one is the indented type consisted by linear berths and indented berths which we can handle from both sides of mega-containership simultaneously. Third one is the floating type consisted by linear berths and the floating berth. On this type, mega-containerships can moor between linear and floating berths. The merits of this type are that we can also handle from both sides of mega-containerships simultaneously, and ships can go through between linear berth and floating berths. Thus it is easier for ships to moor and leave berths. Under such assumptions, we examine the numerical experiments. In most cases, the total service times on the indented type are the longest among three types, these on the floating type are the next longer. Those reasons are that these layouts have the differences of berth occupancy obtained by the time and space axes, and whether the precedence constraints of ship service order needs or not.