Layout analysis affecting strategic decisions in artificial container terminals

• Paper demonstrates how strategic decisions affect future development of terminals.
• Various simulation models for arificial container terminals are developed.
• The models evaluate the terminal performance under different scenarios.
• Yard, AGV and both yard and AGV allocation strategies are applied.
• In conclusion, terminal performance is affected by terminal layout formats.

As a result of a major growth in world trade, importance of the container terminals, which are the exit gates of international maritime trade, has been emphasized and the competition between these terminals has increased. In recent years, increasing competition in shallow seas, which have low berth depth and intensive trade, has caused terminal managers to investigate how the strategic decisions affect the future development of terminal operations. Due to their low berth depth, container terminals in the feeder ports of shallow seas are built artificially near coastlines. The most common layouts found in these terminals are Π, L, π, or Ψ. In this paper, simulation models were developed for the container terminals to examine the effect of transporter dispatching rules and resource allocation strategies in terms of total annual handling amount. According to the results, terminal performance is significantly affected by terminal layout design under different transporter dispatching rules and allocation strategies.