Spatial-Temporal Simulation of Routes Connecting Containers Ports

Ports are crucial in global trade, and shipping trade is relevant for all industries. Even more so now that we are experiencing political and social stresses, a situation which means that maritime routes are increasingly less safe and economically more expensive. Inefficiency emerged as a fundamental factor in the competitiveness of a maritime terminal, and research on container ships plays a relevant role in understanding and assessing the competitiveness of the infrastructure. Consequently, the time elapsed between entering and leaving the port can express the capacity of the infrastructure to handle loading and unloading operations, thus representing a measure of receptiveness. Obtaining detailed data for different ports requires a deep understanding of ship turnaround time, workloads at the yard, and company priorities, thus relying on direct interviews with port workers. Due to the exploratory nature of the study and to overcome the costly and time-consuming on-field surveys, this paper analyzed the performance through a simulation process. As input, typical waiting and handling time probability curves for major container ports are derived from a large dataset of Automatics Information Systems, and some of the most crowded and longest commercial routes are analyzed to evaluate route performances in terms of exchanged numbers of containers, waiting time at the anchoring, and berth operations. The proposed framework involves multiple steps concerning (i) possible route stops, (ii) berth occupation, and (iii) route speed variation with the final goal of reducing the loss of time and increasing the exchanged number of containers for the terminal.