3D Simulation Modeling of Yard Operation in a Container Terminal Jingjing Yu Chen Liang Guolei Tang * Faculty of Infrastructure Engineering Dalian University of Technology Dalian 116024, China * E-mail: tangguolei@dlut.edu.cn KEYWORDS 3D Simulation and Modeling, Container Terminal, Yard Operation. ABSTRACT The yard operation plays an important role in the daily running of a container terminal. Whether the efficiency of a terminal can be improved depends to a significant extent on the operation of its container yard. In order to analyze the yard operation, this paper builds a 3D simulation model to simulate and visualize the yard operation in a container terminal. First, we study the characteristics of yard layout and present the logical model of container yard operation with rubber-tired gantry cranes and trucks. Then, a 3D simulation model of yard operation is implemented, which includes model setup module, container terminal layout module, horizontal transport module, yard operation module, statistics analysis module, and 3D amination module. Finally, the implemented model is applied in practice to examine the impact of reshuffle operation, and the numbers of internal trucks and yard cranes on the efficiency of yard operation. And the results show the proposed simulation model performs well and is helpful for exploring yard operation effectively. 1. INTRODUCTION Due to the boom in world trade, over 90% of cargo currently transported worldwide is shipped as containerized cargo (Liu et al. 2002). The container yard as a central part of cargo stacking and transport has a significant impact on the whole operation of a container terminal. Therefore, to design and operate a successful container terminal, an effective model is needed to help the planners to evaluate and explore the efficiency of yard operation considering the stochastic characteristics of port system. Therefore, many researchers have applied computer simulation to study the operation of container terminals. Petering (2009) analyzed the effect of block width and storage yard layout on the performance of a container transshipment terminal. He simulated dozens of yard configurations to determine the optimal block width (Petering 2009). Böse et al. (2000) compared different strategies of trucks dispatching to yard cranes to reduce the time in port for the vessels. Veeke and Ottjes (2002) used computer simulation to provide a decision support for the extension of Rotterdam Port. Gu et al. (2007) applied dynamic simulation in order to provide the operators and designers some advice on the plan and design of a container yard. The objective of this paper is to establish a 3D simulation model of container yard operation. we focus on the implementation of traffic simulation of horizontal transport and 3D animation of yard operation, which are main contributions of this paper. 2. ANALYSIS OF YARD OPERATION 2.1 Layout of Container Yard The container yard is composed of storage blocks and driving lanes separating those blocks (see Figure 1). The block structure is determined by equipment type used and, more importantly, by the options for transferring a container between a storage block and a horizontal means of transport. Therefore, the yard layout is defined by the organization of the driving lanes, by the number of driving lanes, by the orientation of the storage blocks, the block structure and the design of the storage blocks (Bish et al. 2001). Figure 1: Schematic Structure of a Typical Container Terminal Proceedings 30th European Conference on Modelling and Simulation ©ECMS Thorsten Claus, Frank Herrmann, Michael Manitz, Oliver Rose (Editors) ISBN: 978-0-9932440-2-5 / ISBN: 978-0-9932440-3-2 (CD)