IJMO 2025 Vol.15(1): 25-31
DOI: 10.7763/IJMO.2025.V15.868
A Variable Neighbourhood Search for Solving the Yard Crane Scheduling Problem in Container
Saber Ben Zin*, Aabdelkarim Elloumi, and Alain Quilliot
Saber Ben Zina
1,*, Aabdelkarim Elloumi
2, and Alain Quilliot
2
1. Department of Quantitative Methods, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Sfax (FSEGS), Tunisia
2. Institute of Advanced Computer Models and Applications, University Clermont Auvergne, France
Email: saber.benzina@fsegs.usf.tn (S.B.Z.); abdelkarim.elloumi@fsegs.usf.tn (A.E.); alain.quilliot@uca.fr (A.Q.)
*Corresponding author
Manuscript received April 1, 2025; accepted May 10, 2025; published May 30, 2025.
Abstract—In this context, the objective of the Gantry Crane Scheduling Problem (GCSP) is to develop a schedule that minimizes the completion times of the RTGCs in the container storage areas. The makespan based on a set of container loading or unloading operations. This heuristic is able to find slot schedules with indicated capacity that are efficient for small instances, their performance decreases as the size increases. In this framework, a Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) was developed for the GCSP which contains a local search architecture to retain efficient solutions. Computational evaluations show that VNS is able to significantly outperform the results obtained by CPLEX.
Keywords—container terminal, scheduling problem, Rubber Tyred Gantry cranes (RTGC), variable neighbourhood search, mixed integer programming
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Cite: Saber Ben Zin, Aabdelkarim Elloumi, and Alain Quilliot, "A Variable Neighbourhood Search for Solving the Yard Crane Scheduling Problem in Container," International Journal of Modeling and Optimization, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 25-31, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
(CC BY 4.0).
