Research

Project Number:
03-18

Research Project:
Cooperative Optimum Time Window Generation for Cargo Delivery/Pick up with Application to Container Terminals

P.I. Name & Address:
Petros Ioannou
Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies
University of Southern California
Department of Electrical Engineering, Systems
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2562
Tel:(213) 740-4452
Fax:(213) 744-4418
Email: ioannou@rcf.usc.edu

Anastasios Chassiakos
College of Engineering
California State University, Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Boulevard
Long Beach, CA90840-5602
Tel:(562) 985-4278
Fax:(562) 985-8022
Email: achassk@enfr.csulb.edu

Project Objective:
The substantial increase in international volume of cargo arriving at U.S. ports together with the growth in the national freight have introduced congestion at many traffic networks and led to new dynamics in surface transportation.As a consequence of the inadequate access and lack of good transportation for freight, the delays for both ordinary drivers and for the import and export of goods are likely to grow substantially, leading to higher costs for manufacturers, freight carriers and consumers.

In today's surface transportation, the time window appointment system has been considered business organizations (e.g. seaports, airports, intermodal terminals, and warehouses) as one possible way of managing the flow of trucks at their inbound/outbound gates and meet the constraints of limited resources at their locations. A typical example are the container terminals where often most trucks show up at the gates at the same time creating congestion in the neighborhood of the gate, inside and outside the terminal.. The use of a time window appointment system, in addition to alleviating congestion around the ST it makes operations more predictable and easier to meet the Just-In-Time requirements for cargo delivery and pick up often imposed by customers.

The purpose of this proposal is to investigate methodologies to generate optimum time windows for cargo delivery/pickup at service stations (STs) taking into account the objectives and constraints of different parties involved in cargo movement. Our special interest is to study the impact of generating cooperative time window on the traffic congestion, the cost of trucking operations, and the flow of the trucks at ST gates. In particular, we plan to consider a particular container terminal as our ST location and investigate the impact of implementing the developed algorithms on the flows of containers at the gates and within the container terminal using simulation models. We plan to interact with local trucking companies and terminals in order to obtain real data to validate the simulation models and test and evaluate the developed techniques.

Task Descriptions:
1. Review of Current Practices (3 months)
2. Cooperative Time Window Appointment Generation for Container Delivery/Pick up (5 months)
3. Flow Modeling in a Container Terminal (5 months)
4. Evaluating the Effect of Appointment Window System on the Container Flows (4 months)
5. Industry Interaction and Collaboration (5 months)
6. Final Report (1 month)

Milestones, Dates:
June 1, 2003 - May 31, 2004; final draft report 5/31/04

Total Budget:
$189,948

Student Involvement:
One Student @ 50% time, 12 months (USC)
Two Students @ 50% time, 12 months (CSULB)

Relationship to Other Research Projects:
Related to 00-15, 00-17; part of goods movement and international trade focus area

Technology Transfer Activities:
Project report posted on the website

Potential Benefits of the Project:
More efficient truck routing, increased terminal operations productivity

TRB Keywords:
Container terminals, logistics

Primary Subject:
Transportation and logistics systems operation

Goals:
Economic growth and trade

Enabling Research:
Tools for modeling and design

Modal Orientation:
Highway, maritime