Develop alternative means of increasing capacity at US ports to accommodate growing demand

Every link in the supply chain is pinched, and now is the time to consider strategic alternatives and long-term strategies for handling demand that continues to increase by double-digits every year. US ports are currently faced with the challenge to increase capacity to keep up with the dramatically increasing volume of commercial cargo transiting through them. These ports can improve their ability to handle additional capacity in two ways-by increasing throughput or by increasing acreage. Emerging designs, such as the APS, are proposed as a way to increase port efficiency and are an alternative to building additional traditional infrastructure and expanding existing port facilities by thousands of acres, sparing precious and expensive waterfront land.

Simulate designs of alternative approaches, such as the Agile Port System, to determine actual throughput and level of service

CCDoTT focuses on the deployment of advanced technologies to improve transportation systems. As mentioned, one of its specific objectives is to improve the agility and efficiency of ports and the multi-modal transportation corridors that serve them.

What is an Agile Port System?
The APS design consists of marine terminals, inland intermodal facilities and a dedicated freight corridor that connects the waterside with the inland facilities. This operation increases the throughput capacity of marine terminals by moving the cargo storage and sorting components to an inland location where land development costs are less expensive and traffic congestion impacts are reduced. Also, leveraging advances in Information Technology, this design enables direct transshipments where containers are removed from vessels and directly sorted and transferred to rail for immediate transport to continental US destinations without the need for inland sorting. The following schematic illustrates the general APS function:

Figure 1: Agile Port System Diagram

This type of container cargo transportation system requires innovative operations at the marine terminal to realize the anticipated productivity increases. These operations often require containers to be stored for days or longer waiting for truck pickup, or for vessel and rail servicing schedules. A more efficient way to operate a marine terminal is to directly transfer containers from the vessels to rail cars to avoid waterfront storage operations and congestion problems associated with trucks and connecting highways.

The EMT within the APS minimizes container storage and maximizes wharf crane throughput potential by efficiently using resources. Depending on the complexity of the intermodal splits and the inland distribution system, it is estimated that more than half the import cargo could be handled with these direct transfer methods. Containers that must be stored, sorted or accumulated to support continental US and regional schedules would be accommodated at an intermodal interface center (IIC).

A series of discrete-event simulation models to support the analysis of these various concepts have been developed. Simulation offers the unique ability to test the performance of systems or concepts before they are actually built-providing a method of comparing performance across numerous proposed concepts as well as a mechanism to quantify and visualize performance. This capability is particularly important to demonstrate feasibility and gain stakeholder support of concepts that have had limited deployment in commercial and military settings.

Simulation is a proven technology that has been used in manufacturing and industrial applications such as material handling systems for many years. The same general methods are also applicable for transportation infrastructure problems in which systems must move goods or containers on a larger scale. For transportation problems, one of the important questions that simulation can answer is:

"What level of infrastructure or system capacity is needed to provide desired level of service?"

To answer this question, simulation provides a framework where every container, train or other vehicle trip can be explicitly represented as it moves through its processing steps and transportation requirements.

CCDoTT sponsors numerous programs to study the APS and performance analysis is critical for each one. Models constructed to support these programs require a conceptual level of detail and the flexibility in order to configure them for the unique analysis requirements of each CCDoTT study. The models also have been designed such that they can be applied and demonstrated for different geographical regions as these programs expand and gain interest. In addition, as physical demonstrations are conducted and additional details are learned, the models are updated to maintain program synchronization.

The models for the various CCDoTT projects have unique objectives in terms of scope and analysis requirements. To support these efforts, CCDoTT has contracted Automation Associates, Inc. (AAI) to design and develop models to meet the various program objectives. AAI has leveraged its flexible simulation tool, the Transportation Modeling Studio (TMS), to support the range of analysis objectives for various CCDoTT programs via its ability to incorporate a specific operational plan. The TMS can capture analysis from the demand requirements of an entire port to the unique support requirements for APS operations using a transportation corridor. It also provides the framework to represent the system infrastructure and the traffic routing patterns (via CAD import tools) whether it is a terminal or a regional transportation system/network.

Alternative designs proven through simulation can be implemented confidently, allowing for precise planning to handle drastic increases in capacity The wide-ranging and innovative transportation concepts supported by CCDoTT require the cooperative backing of many industry and public participants including port operators, short and long-haul rail roads, truckers, regional government, analysts and others. This is critical, as US port improvements are urgently needed due to projected increases of triple the current container volumes by the year 2020. To attain APS success, conventional freight movement operations will have to be adjusted and potential participants may remain unconvinced of the promised productivity improvements. Simulation is an excellent method to visually demonstrate these innovative transportation concepts and their underlying components. When simulation is used to prove these design concepts for operations, the model also becomes an invaluable method to take real-world demand requirements and quantify the infrastructure needed to provide desired level of service.