Analysis on container port capacity: a Markovian modeling approach

Container ports handle outbound, inbound, and transshipment containers plying between the area for vessels on the quay and the storage space in the yard. Port operators typically concentrate their efforts on the container handling process with the aims of increasing the productivity of quay-side operations and reducing the time in port of vessels. Recognizing that operation processes necessitate containers to stay in the storage space for a certain period before moving to other areas, the operational efficiency at the yard (in addition to that at the quayside) plays an influential role in ensuring performance measures of a container port. This study develops analytical models based on the Markov chain to estimate the port capacity under various combinations of resources, namely, quay cranes, yard cranes, and prime movers. Important performance measures representing the capacity in the proposed models are analyzed and sensitivity analyses of the port capacity are conducted through numerical experiments. The results under the suggested operational strategies are also compared.