A heuristic for dynamic yard crane deployment in a container terminal

Rubber Tired Gantry Cranes (RTGCs) are the most widely used pieces of equipment in the Hong Kong sea-freight container yards. Workload distribution in the yard changes continuously over time. The dynamic deployment of RTGCs is an important issue in yard operation management. This paper investigates the dynamic crane deployment problem with the objective of determining the crane deployment frequency and routes over a planning horizon to minimize the total workload overflow. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming model. A heuristic algorithm is then developed to solve problems of practical sizes. The heuristic quickly finds a near optimal solution for crane deployment operation.