Programme

Intermodal Container Transport and the New Silk Road​​

by Erwin Pesch
University of Siegen, Germany

Short abstract: Container terminals have become a center of interchange between different modes of transportation and cargo handling. The Eurasian container transportation is expected to rise with the support of the Chinese initiative One Belt One Road (OBOR). The Belt is referred to the land (mainly rail) part of the corridor. The second element of OBOR is the maritime route. If successfully implemented it is going to significantly change possibilities of goods transportation on the route China-Europe. Container transportation includes diversified problems on different levels of management, such as planning and scheduling, fleet sizing and consolidating, decisions about container ownership or leasing and container repositioningю In this talk we will review some optimization problems of container processing in railway yards, and analyze basic decision problems and solution approaches for the two most important yard types: conventional rail-road and modern rail-rail transshipment yards. Additionally we address a container dispatching and conflict-free gantry crane routing problem that arises at a storage container block in an automated, maritime container terminal. A container block serves as an intermediate buffer for inbound and outbound containers and exchanges of containers between water- and landside of a maritime terminal. The considered block is perpendicular to the waterside and employs two rail mounted gantry cranes. Cranes may have the same or different sizes and therefore either are based at the opposite sides of the container block or can cross each other. The question arises in which order and by which crane containers are transported in order to minimize the makespan and prevent crane conflicts.

Semi-plenary talks

Methodological notes on the use of data analytics in transportation analysis

by Jaume Barcelo
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain

Short abstract: The conventional practice in transportation analysis has usually relied on scarce data, costly and painful to collect. The advent of the Information and Communication technologies (ICT) and its pervasive penetration has dramatically changed the scenario and the role of stakeholders, since each mobile device is at the same time a data source and an information receiver. The huge amount of data that can be collected makes this domain a fertile research area for applications of Big Data and related techniques, prompting the ideas of Data Driven applications. However, when dealing with transportation systems we not only need descriptive applications but also predictive ones. To appropriately infer user behaviors and mobility patterns and use them to make predictions it necessary, and not easy, to combine data analysis and transportation models. This lecture addresses some of the key aspects concerning data collection, filtering, processing and its uses as input to transportation models, based on our current experience and the state of the art.

Selected optimization problems in last-mile delivery

by Daniele Vigo
DEI – Università di Bologna, Italy

Short abstract: Last-mile delivery is a challenging arena for optimization where researchers and practitioners face large planning and operational problems with highly demanding requirements in terms of solution quality, flexibility and efficiency. We focus on the design of routing plans for distribution services and examine various important aspects that may impact their performance, such as the service area definition and the exploitation of outsourcing opportunities, as well as the characteristics of trips design which facilitate their implementation in practice.