Container Terminal Land-Utilisation Efficiency in Ghana

Abstract

Land-use efficiency is essential in ports, in particular those that are constrained for space and experiencing congestion. In such situations, ports have been noted to invest in off-dock container yards. This study analysed land use efficiency of four off-dock yards located near the Port of Tema, Ghana's largest seaport responsible for 85 percent of its trade. The study found that the terminals utilised 0.13 to 0.52 hectares of land, largely influenced by the dwell time and stacking height of containers. It was recommended that regulatory agencies need to coordinate better to reduce the time spent on cargo inspection and validation. In addition, terminals may need to incentivise customers to clear their import containers within shorter periods.

Storage strategy of outbound containers with uncertain weight by data-driven hybrid genetic simulated annealing algorithm

“…Allocating an appropriate number of containers in each content area will greatly improve the utilization of yard resources. Generally, the layout of the wharf yard is divided into two types: coastal layout and vertical shore layout [17], as shown in Fig 2.…”

“…In Eqs ( 9) to ( 23 Eq (10) is the arrival interval between outbound container n and outbound container n-1; Eq (11) is the priority of the nth entry outbound container; Eq (12) means that one outbound container can only be stacked in one container position; Eq (13) means that at most one outbound container can be stacked in one container poistion; Eq (14) means that the number of outbound containers in the bay is not greater than the bay capacity; Eq (15) means that the outbound containers in the lower tier are more than those in the upper tier; Eq (16) indicates that each upper outbound container arrives at the lower outbound container; Eq (17) indicates that when the priority of the outbound container stored at slot(b, i, j+1) is less than that at slot(b, i, j), it is recorded that the container is turned over once; Eq (18) denotes that the sum of the storage containers in each bay is equal to the inbound and outbound containers; Eq (19) refers to the scheduling time of the yard crane from one bay position to the next bay position; Eq (20) is the idle waiting time of yard crane; Eq (21) means that each outbound container can only be completed by one yard crane; Eq (22) is the balance of work volume of each yard crane; Eq (23) is to maintain a sufficient safety distance between yard cranes.…”