Automation technologies in container terminals: A simulation study of an automated guided vehicle

Maritime transportation, which has an important place in human life throughout history, has directed civilizations in every period. The human being settled in the places where transportation can be made easily and this has shaped the world by communicating with other societies with regard to means of maritime. Voyages, which lasted thousands of miles from one end to the other, also carried cultures. Mankind operated steel ships with the invention of steam engines and it allowed to grow world gross tonnage. When maritime transportation has begun long before the small boats were sailing, but nowadays these voyages have been carried out by cargo ships which can carry vast amount of cargoes. On the other hand, maritime activity is inherently safe and inexpensive. Leaving aside the pirate attacks that are declining throughout the world, the high amount of cargos carried in one time provides less fuel and less polluted nature. Furthermore, when the accident statistics are evaluated, with respect to carried cargo amount life and property losses are at a low level. The international maritime transport, which is assumed to have started with the warehouse in Basra Bay in the third century BC, is now provided by ships made of steel with increased tonnage. The steel boxes placed on these steel ships have added a different dimension to the maritime transport. In 1956, a new era was opened in maritime transport with the first container box transported from Port Newark to Houston port. The container transportation, which started with 48 steel boxes, was made with containers of various sizes, such as 33, 30 or 24 feet. As a result of the competition between firms, no standard has been obtained in transportation due to different container dimentions. However, today's standards have been laid with the inventor of the container allowing his patent to be used by others. In the first few years, the volume of transport has remained low. With comparasion the first ordered vessel's cargo capacity 226 TEU and todays twenty-one thousand TEU, it is obvious that in the first few years' cargo capacity is significantly low. After 16 years of first container transportation voyage in 1972, first container quay was constructed in Hong Kong Kwai Chung area. Following 15 years of opening first container quay, Europe had decided to move forward port terminal operations with development investments. In 1985, Rotterdam port had 2,655 million TEU movement. With this amount of cargo movement, Rotterdam became a biggest container port terminal with respect to cargo movement capacity. The shipbuilding sector also enables larger vessels to be built in line with increasing volumes and demands. However, changing routes and freight rates alter these demands from day to day, causing the next target about shipping industry to be unpredictable. But today's demand, 17 percent of the total cargo is transported by container ships. And also, 13.2 percent of all maritime trade fleet consists of container ships. Container transportation began with the first terminal in history with the Encinal Terminal in California. With the special equipments owned by the terminal, the cargo of the ship carried by manpower has become transportable with special equipment. By the equipment that allows the cargo to be handled more easily, it is aimed to serve the docking vessels in the fastest and safest manner. Ports that allow handling of cargoes carried on the sea are of greater importance in terms of efficiency. Smooth port operations are a must to ensure safe and secure operation for vessels which are influenced by external factors such as sea, current, weather, etc. Especially for container transport which has its own special standards, the smallest interruption in port operations can cause big delays. Nowadays, it is planned to complete the operation within 24 hours and special equipments are designed for this purpose. For example, discharging of containers from the ship, transportation on dock side, and port stacking operations are main topics of port operations. For all these steps there are various way to use every equipments which are capable of complete tasks more than one option. Equipments that may vary depending on the ship size determine the handling capacity of the terminal. Planning and / or monitoring required for ports and terminals has become easier with special software used for this purpose. This software called as Terminal Operating System. Authorized terminal operator can access almost every single point via using Terminal Operating System such as container tracking, vehicle tracking, job assignment, gate control etc. Data collected at one point and all informations can be processed according to user needs with this technology. Container terminal operations are divided into three classes according to the automation technologies of these equipment, as traditional container terminals, semi-automation and full automation. Although it is not a factor in measuring the direct operation volume, it is determinative in terms of port efficiency. In traditional container terminals, the operation takes place completely under human supervision and container handling process are operated by human-controlled equipments. Compared with the traditional container terminals, semi-automation container terminals aim to eliminate human power at one or more steps in the container handling process. The main aim of this type of terminal is to control operation by remote access. At the same time, terminal aims to replace any handling or transportation step with automated guided vehicles. The most advanced port technology is a terminal operation that has a number of automation technology, such as remote controlled gantry cranes, automated guided vehicles, automated lifting vehicles, etc. Furthermore, those all equipments are controlled from one point with a single man power. This allows port terminal to handle more container than the traditional container terminals more safe and efficient way. This type of container terminal is called as full automation container terminal. Within the scope of this study, the actual operation data obtained from the traditional container terminal operation and the automated guided vehicle which could be used in the semi-automation or full automation terminals were compared with respect to operational usage data. In this study, the number of terminal trucks and simulated automated guided vehicles are compared. Moreover, the path length of terminal truck and automated guided vehicle are compared as well. It was assumed that a single container ship was served within the port and vehicle efficiency was emphasized. No differences in distance was found between terminal tractor and automated guided vehicle as a result of simulation using A* path finding algorithm. Approximately the same distances were found at both manned operation and simulated operation in the container terminal which can be named as closed environment in terms of guided navigation. When the number of vehicles used during the operation in the terminal are compared, the discharging of the container at the level of two percent has not been completed as a result of reducing the number of vehicles by 15 percent. However, this includes only one container ship unloading operation. When these two comparisons are considered and the first investment cost is taken into consideration, the vehicle upgrade from manned to unmanned that the terminal can apply to increase the efficiency has not been considered applicable.