الفهرس 
PUBLICATIONS ARISING from THIS THESIS
Thesis MotivationOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Maritime transport has a direct impact on international trade. Around
80% of global trade is carried by sea and is handled by ports worldwide.
The majority of goods are transported in containers. Seaports are facing a
considerable growth in container handling. A seaport container terminal is
a place where container ships are loaded and unloaded, and where
containers are temporarily stored at container yards for variable periods.
When a ship arrives at the port, multiple quay cranes are assigned for
loading and discharging containers from ships to trucks. Trucks transport
containers between container yards and Quayside. Yard cranes are
assigned to store containers at storage locations. The docking time of
vessels at the port must be as small as possible. This means that container
handling process has to be completed in a short time, with effective use of
different resources. Container terminals are facing a set of related
optimization problems; Quay Crane Assignment Problem (QCAP), Yard
Crane Assignment Problem (YCAP), Truck Assignment Problem, and
Storage Space Allocation Problem (SSAP).
In container terminals, there are many interrelated NP-hard
combinatorial optimization problems and the solution of one of these
problems may affect the solution of other related problems. The logistics
in container terminals has already reached a high degree of complexity;
therefore, the need of optimization in container terminal operation has
become more important in recent years. Extensive research has been
carried out on these problems separately. As such, they are unable to
ensure optimal solution for container handling in container terminal. In addition, solving container terminal problems are facing computational
complexity challenges. Thus, an optimized integrated solution for
container terminal problems is considered in this research.
This research presents a new approach to optimize an integrated
solution for container terminal problems; quay crane assignment problem,
yard crane assignment problem, truck assignment problem, and storage
space allocation problem using optimization techniques based on genetic
algorithm and discrete event simulation methodology. A new
mathematical model that integrates the activities of a container terminal to
minimize the total container handling time in container terminal with
effective use of container terminal resources is proposed in this research.
Computational experiments are applied by the proposed approach on a
real case study data of container terminal at different Egyptian ports. The
computational results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach
where the docking time of container ships at the port is reduced.