Simulating the Landside Congestion in a Container Terminal. The Experience of the Port of Naples (Italy)

The Consorzio Napoletano Terminal Containers (CO.NA.TE.CO.), located in the Port of Naples, is continuously exposed to a problem of traffic congestion. A queuing model has been developed to analyze this congestion problem. The model includes part of the process of exportation. The entities represented the vehicles that access into the terminal, and the servers were the entrance gate and the process of moving the freight to the yard. According to these definitions, five models have been developed with the aim of simulating solutions to the congestion problem. The first model reproduces the current situation, and the modifications in the servers have been evaluated through the rest. Finally, it has been proved that all processes inside the terminal were strongly dependent. The study shows that the solution should consider the decreasing simultaneously the time of service in the access gate and in the yard.