Abstract: The research object of the container terminal collection and distribution resource scheduling is a multi-stage integrated operating system including loading, unloading and transporting containers, consisting of quay-cranes, container trucks and yard-cranes. The scheduling of the system is optimized based on the multi-stage hybrid flow shop scheduling to establish an integer programming model, taking into account the practical constraints of realistic jobs in the container terminal such as pre-defined sequence of operations, avoiding cross-operation and sequence-depended setup time and so on. A two-phase heuristic algorithm is designed for the problem according to the characteristics of itself, getting each equipment's assigning result and operating sequence in each stage. The comparative experiment, by comparing the optimal results with the scheduling scheme based on current scheduling rules and the theoretical lower bound of the objective function, shows the proposed integrated scheduling model and solution algorithm can effectively reduce the time of vessels in the harbor and realize the sharing of container trucks. This study provides a new method for integrated scheduling of container terminals.

Key words: container terminal, scheduling, hybrid flow shop, Johnson rules, dynamic assignment