Model and heuristic algorithm for Quay Crane Scheduling at container terminal

In the Quay Crane Scheduling Problem (QCSP) a set of loading/unloading ship tasks for a vessel are dispatching to a set of assigned QCs. Every task must be processed once by a QC while a QC can process at most one task at a time. A solution to the problem, called a QC schedule, which define starting time for every task on a crane. A polynomial time heuristic is proposed for Quay Crane Scheduling Problem (QCSP) at container terminal in this paper. The objective is to minimize the total handle time of all tasks while both Quay Crane (QC) moving time and interference constraints are considered. The concept of contiguous bay operation and the decomposition of QC operating time are considered by the heuristic to generate QC schedule.