Design and Simulation of a Monorail Network for the Inter-terminal Transport

In line with the trend of global transport volume which has increased rapidly over the years, internal transportation in seaports is always conducted with high frequency. Thus, there is always much potential for traffic jams as well as high transportation costs and emissions. Many efforts have been initiated to streamline the inter-terminal container transport (ITT) through the development of automated vehicles and equipment as well as using private transport facilities to overcome these limitations. The purpose of this paper to develop a framework to design, analyze, and validate the efficiency of a new ITT system in a port area based on the monorail network and automatic vehicles. First, the number of shuttles and loaders was determined depending on the transport demand scenario. Next, a simulation model was applied to evaluate the system performance as well as gain more insight into the working process of the ITT system. Finally, by setting goals for the performance indicators, the results showed that the system was highly efficient with 100% of the containers delivered to their destination on time. Besides, a series of other performance tracking was provided to provide insight into the system's capabilities.