A Heuristic Algorithm to Solve a Layout Problem of Sea Containers

By increasing the use of container transportation, one of the existing problems is the constant capacity of container terminals due to problems, such as lengthy construction process, lack of budget and space to build new locations, as well as lack of manpower. Also, this constant capacity leads to problems such as reduced trade relations, increased maintenance and warehousing costs, increased transportation costs, and increased loading and unloading times, as well as container allocation problems. To solve this problem without increasing the area of the terminal, this paper present a mathematical model to allocate containers that can be used not only to solve this problem, but also in other cases such as transportation and shipping used. Due to the size of problems used in this research, a heuristic algorithm, namely LOGIC algorithm is used. According to studies, carried out in the literature, this algorithm has not been used in relevant problems so far. Also, due to the development of the LOGIC algorithm in this paper, it can be used for other large-scale optimization problems. The development of the proposed algorithm can be improved to solve the layout problem of maritime containers with other real constraints.