Container yard template planning under uncertain maritime market

•This paper studies a yard template planning problem for transshipment hubs.•The model considers the periodicity of vessel arrivals and uncertainties.•The issue on yard traffic congestions is also considered.•An efficient solution approach is proposed for solving the model.

A yard template determines the assignment of spaces in a yard for arriving vessels. Fluctuation of demand for freight transportation brings new challenges for making a robust yard template when facing uncertain maritime market. A model is proposed for yard template planning considering random numbers of containers that will be loaded onto vessels that visit the port periodically. Traffic congestions and multiple schedule cycle times for vessel arrival patterns are also considered. Moreover, a meta-heuristic method is developed for solving the model in large-scale cases. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate effectiveness and efficiency of the model.