Container handling using multi-agent architecture

Container terminals are essential intermodal interfaces in the global transportation network. Efficient container handling at terminals is important in reducing transportation costs and keeping shipping schedules. This paper discusses a multi-agent model to simulate, solve and optimize the amount of storage space for handling container departures within a fluvial or maritime port. The multi-agent model is developed to minimize the expected total number of rehandles while respecting spatio-temporal constraints. Experimental and numerical runs are given and illustrated. These runs carry out the proposed multi-agent model with comparison to the associated centralized version, basing on non-informed search algorithm and informed search algorithm. They show that the multi-agent model reduces rather the number of expected relocation movements especially when basing on informed search algorithm.