Logistics Objective Conflicts at Intermodal Terminals

Gantry cranes are essential working systems at intermodal terminals. Their operation faces conflicting logistical objectives, such as improving the throughput time of the loading units, increasing the handling output, or reducing the waiting times of vehicles. Possible methods for analysing such conflicting objectives are Logistic Operating Curves (LOC) and throughput diagrams, which have found application in production logistics and can be derived and verified using simulation. In this paper, a simulation model for intermodal terminals is proposed to parameterize characteristic LOC. The LOC are used to analyse the conflict between the target values of a high output rate and a low throughput time.