HUs Fleet Management in an Automated Container Port: Assessment by a Simulation Approach

Freight fleet management (FM) can be defined as an optimization process of freight vehicles scheduling and routing, aimed at reducing time, costs, energy, and environmental impacts. In the specialized literature, there are many FM studies. The focus of this paper is on the FM in the context of a container port to increase the productivity and pursue the sustainability of the logistics node improving the performance by using freight advanced handling units (HUs). The use of automated HUs reduces the time and costs of each port activity, eliminating timewasters and increasing safety; however, it requires advanced intelligent management. Moreover, the automation is in line with energy and environmental sustainability. The paper aims to assess the impacts due to the automation of HUs by using a simulation approach. After a framework of traditional and automated HUs, allowing to highlight their main characteristics, the work considers the organizational problems of a container port and introduces a methodological approach to manage the FM of HUs. Finally, the application to a real context is presented to compare the present configuration of a container port with some project scenarios, considering different levels of automation, as the partial and total replacements of traditional HUs with advanced/automated vehicles.