Double Girder Bridge Crane with Double Cycling: Scheduling Strategy and Performance Evaluation

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel quay crane design, double girder bridge crane (DGBC). DGBC is capable of handling containers of two adjacent bays simultaneously, avoiding crane collisions, saving travelling and reposition cost, and eventually improving terminal efficiency. This problem is formulated as a resource-constrained project scheduling with objective to minimize the maximum completion time. A two-stage heuristic algorithm is proposed in which an operating sequences on each bay is obtained by double cycling, and the integrated timetable for both bays is constructed by solving resource conflicts using the proposed minimum cost strategy. We examine effectiveness and performance of applying DGBC with double cycling. A case study is presented to illustrate how DGBC works with the two-stage method. Three extreme cases with respective conflict types are investigated to develop the performance bounds of DGBC with double cycling. The results show that DGBC can significantly improve terminal productivity, and outperforms single girder crane in both makespan and the lift operation percentage. The highest DGBC efficiency does not require maximum double cycles in two bay schedules; rather the integrated timetable for two bays is the main contribution to the DGBC performance as it yields better cooperation between two spreaders and the driver.