A simulation model for the management for containers internal transport in a seaport

Abstract

This paper proposes a simulation model for the management of vehicles in charge of the internal transport of containers at a seaport. These vehicles are specialized trucks that must transport containers within the port to carry out activities such as inspections by customs authorities, loading and unloading to different modes of transport and storage. The main objective of this research is to propose a model that permits efficiently managing trucks by minimizing the empty journeys carried out by these vehicles. For this purpose, we propose a simulation model that considers three strategies that are called single, double and mixed cycles. The proposed model allowed to consider additional elements of the internal transport operation that affect the use of trucks, as well as different scenarios with traffic increases that allowed validating the robustness of the model. As a main result, the model allowed to determine the appropriate amount of trucks that must be allocated for each of the tasks, thus avoiding internal congestion and reducing the costs of using vehicles, as well as increasing the productivity of the machinery that complements the transport operations.