Welcome to AAI's monthly Innovations, where we share with you the best practices in simulation engineering through case studies and industry experience. In this month's issue, we focus on how simulation can help in capacity planning at US ports.

Simulations to Support Alternative Transportation Concept Analysis

The Center for the Commercial Deployment of Transportation Technologies (CCDoTT) is a California State University, Long Beach sponsored, government approved and supported research & development center dealing with maritime-related transportation issues on behalf of both commercial and military interests. It was established in 1995 to address dual-use issues relating to emerging High-Speed Ships and their related Agile Port Systems (APS). The High-Speed Ship and Agile Port programs have emerged as leading activities in support of transitional military deployment requirements and commercial efforts to enhance the competitive position of the US flag fleet. CCDoTT's Efficient Marine Terminal (EMT) program addresses the improvement in marine terminal productivity and is the baseline program for the Agile Port sector.

With every link in the supply chain currently being pinched, CCDoTT must consider strategic alternatives and long-term strategies for handling the 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.

The models for the various CCDoTT alternative projects have unique objectives in terms of scope and analysis requirements. By leveraging AAI's flexible simulation tool, the Transportation Modeling Studio (TMS), to support the range of analysis objectives, CCDoTT has used simulation to validate alternative port designs and implement them confidently, enabling precise planning to handle drastic increases in capacity.

To learn more about CCDoTT's application of simulation modeling to solve its port capacity challenge, read the entire case study.

Provide your feedback on this edition of AAI Innovations.

Did you miss last month's edition of AAI's Innovations, Improving Wave Planning Through Simulation To Increase Operational Efficiencies?