A Multi-Agent Based Simulation Model for Rail–Rail Transshipment: An Engineering Approach for Gantry Crane Scheduling

Le Havre Port Authority is putting into service a multimodal hub terminal with massified hinterland links (trains and barges) in order to restrict the intensive use of roads, to achieve a more attractive massification share of hinterland transportation and to provide a river connection to its maritime terminals that do not currently have one. This paper focuses on the rail-rail transshipment yard of this new terminal. In the current organizational policy, this yard is divided into two equal operating areas, and, in each one, a crane is placed, and it is equipped with reach stackers to enable container moves across both operating areas. However, this policy causes poor scheduling of crane moves, because it gives rise to many crane interference situations. For the sake of minimizing the occurrence of these undesirable situations, this paper proposes a multi-agent simulation model including an improved strategy for crane scheduling. This strategy is inspired by the ant colony approach and it is governed by a new configuration for the rail yard's working area that eliminates the use of reach stackers. The proposed simulation model is based on two planner agents, to each of which a time-horizon planning is assigned. The simulation results show that the model developed here is very successful in significantly reducing unproductive times and moves (undesirable situations), and it outperforms other existing simulation models based on the current organizational policy.