Planning block widths for storage yards of container terminals with parallel blocks

Container terminals have different layout structures depending on the equipment used and the orientation of their storage blocks. In this paper we discuss the influence of different block widths on the yard performance for a terminal with parallel blocks. Different trade-offs are described that have to be taken into consideration when planning the block width of a container terminal yard. Formulas are derived to estimate expected travel times for trucks and yard cranes for different possible block widths. For an exemplary scenario numerical results are presented. The results for the exemplary scenario show that an optimal block width regarding the yard performance has eight rows.