Innovative technology of terminal container processing

Abstract

The article discusses a new technology of terminal processing of container traffic, which involves direct transfer of containers by rail mounted gantry cranes between groups of railcars instead of additional shunting procedures for their selection before supplying and withdrawal at loading and unloading railway tracks. In order to implement the accessibility to the gantry crane span, the additional loading and unloading railway track is introduced, intended to discard incoming containers by a gantry crane and their transhipment to the trains marshalling in the specific destination. This technology is applicable in the organization of container trains in regional distribution and storage centers and in the implementation of modal container block-trains with loading and unloading procedures in the same direction. Based on the analysis of technical development of the terminal network, the opportunity of implementing the proposed approach on Russian railways has been provided. The effect of this innovative technology is proposed to be evaluated from the perspective of decreasing the duration of rolling stock handling and, accordingly, reducing the operating costs of a terminal. The simulation of the terminal processing time of a container flow with the traditional and new approaches was carried out on the basis of the Monte Carlo method. On the basis of modeling, the dependence of the magnitude effect size on the number of the containers transhipped is determined.