First automatic empty container yard with no operator in China

Due to the boom in world trade with leaps and bounds, port authorities are looking into ways of making facilities more efficient. To build Shanghai as the international shipping center, it is the strategic step to found Shanghai as the international container hub port. The Shanghai port must improve the competitive ability to cope with this dynamic challenge. However the existing piling capability of the container yard in Shanghai port is not satisfied the requirement today. The most advanced automatic container terminals in the world are based on the use of AGVs (Automatic Guided Vehicles), which are not accord with the port environment of Shanghai. The port authorities have to find and deploy effective container handling systems in order to increase the throughput of the current container terminals for the progressively enormous pressure rooting in the new massive container ships and scarcity of the yard land and so on. In this paper, the first automatic empty container yard (AECY) with no operator in China is proposed, which is constructed and located in Shanghai Port Container Co., Ltd. Waigaoqiao Terminal Branch. In AECY, the automatic handling system in relay is adopted, which is the new process procedure and uses two new types of RMG and buffer platform. Besides, a simulation model is developed and used to simulate this new AECY and evaluate its performance. The simulation results show that AECY can be effectively adopted in combination with the optimized loading, unloading list, lower waiting time, and reduce the number of crane conflicts on the yard and the average length of the truck queues in the terminal. Therefore the new process procedure of AECY and its simulation results help to improve the efficiency, and the capacity of container yard, and meet the future demand of the container terminal of Shanghai international shipping center.