Glossary

Automated Guided Vehicle, automated equipment for the horizontal transport inside the terminal.

For more information, refer to TT - Terminal Tractor.

Automated RTG, Typically automated stacking of containers and remote-operated hand shake with the transport equipment.

Automatic stacking cranes (ASC) are rail-mounted cranes used for yard-stacking and in-stack transportation of containers. ASCs typically deposit and pick up containers from dedicated interchange areas located at both ends of the stack.

Seaside capacity (measured in TEU/anno) of a seaport terminal, which is a.o. influenced by

• the quay layout,
• the number of loading and unloading equipment incl. their productivity,
• vessel size and schedule with a given workload
• reliability on the vessel schedule.

May be calculated for single berth areas or the whole quayside.

The port or terminal will be developed on a place, where the land has to reclaimed from the sea/river. Subspecies of Greenfield.

For more information, refer to CHESSCON Simulation / Capacity.

Area or working queue which causes slower productivity of other equipment/area.

The port or terminal will be developed on an existing area, which is already (partly) used as port or terminal area. In this case a reorganisation or extension of an existing area is the main topic.

For more information, refer to CHESSCON Simulation / Capacity.

The capacity of a container terminal is measured in TEU per anno - the potential overall throughput, that a terminal may achieve. It depends on many factors, as quay length and layout, number of quay cranes and the proposed productivity per vessel type, yard capacity in slots and dwell time, size of vessels, arrival rate and punctuality, etc.

Container Handling Equipment, short name for any equipment transporting and/or stacking containers.

A container terminal in a seaport is a facility where cargo containers are discharged from and loaded to vessels. Typically they are stacked in the container yard before they are transshipped to other transport vehicles, which may be again inland or seagoing vessels, trucks or trains.

Information about the containers and their properties, which are stacked on the terminal and/or are advise to enter the terminal soon.

Number of jobs per hour performed by the device

Cantilevered RMG. The crane has one cantilever at the side of the crane. The behaviour is similar to the RTG, transfering the container at the side of the block to the horizontal transport equipment. May be automated/remote operated or manned.

Double contilever RMG.
The crane has cantilevers on both sides of the crane. The behaviour is similar to the RTG, transfering the container at the side of the block to the horizontal transport equipment. May be automated/remote operated or manned.

Within one crane cycle the crane may stack in a container from handshake area into the stack/vessel and stacks out a container from the stack/vessel to the handshake area within one cycle. Similar definition may be used for transport equipment.

Forklifter to stack up to 7 empty containers in the Yard.

Subspecies of Simulation. Whilst simulation combines the decision making process and the material flow within one model, the emulation uses the simulation model of the material flow and uses the real Terminal Operating System (TOS) to control the processes within the material flow.

Thus the simulation model provides a test-bed for the real control system. It may be used for functional testing, strategy optimisation and training of the control staff."

For more information, refer to CHESSCON Virtual Terminal.

Alias for FMS.

Fleet Managment System. The FMS is organizing the operation of one type of equipment. The tasks for the FMS are on the execution level -as collision control, routing of all devices, device assignment, etc.- as well as for planning support issues –as predicting operation times, prioritizing the resources, etc.-. Thus the FMS is responsible for the local area, this may be the AGV transport network as well as one stacking block operated with two or three cranes.

Alias for Equipment Control System.

The port or terminal will be developed on an existing area, which is not used for port or terminal Operation.

For more information, refer to CHESSCON Simuation / Capacity.

Transportation of a container to prepare the next shift operation. E.g. transportation of a full export to the sea-side end of the stack to speed up operation during loading.

Time, which occurs if a device has no current job (e.g. waiting until the external truck arrives at the stack). In this case the crane will not start the stacking job before.

Jobs/h, number of jobs performed by a piece of equipment in one hour (i.e. within a dual cycle the device is performing two jobs within one cycle).

AGV with a lifting technology, which allow to pick up/drop off containers on a specific rack at the yard block.

Average driving distance (meters) per Job.

Quay-side crane for loading / discharging vessels in a terminal. Typically wheeled and therefore mobile to change positions anywhere on the terminal.

Number of containers performed by a device within one hour (e.g. with one crane cycle of twin lift operation, two moves are performed).

Short form for an empty container.

The Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) evaluation combines the productivity, the utilisation of the equipment used and the quality of the processes within one KPI. It may be broken down hierarchically from the whole terminal to the area's waterside, gate and rail and their sub processes.

Overhead Bridge Crane. Special type of RMG, where the rail is not on the ground but on a concrete construction above the highest level of the container stack. Thus the crane has less weight and is not directly interfering with the horizontal transport level. May be automated/remote operated or manned.

Port Community System. A central system used in ports since the 1970s in Europe to centralize all communication and switch from a bilateral system to a multilateral communication. These days spreading across the whole port industry as this remains the first step of digitization and towards a smart port.

Ususlly the ruling body of the port. Often acts as a landlord to the operating facilities and owns the land the terminals are build on. Often a mix of a private organisation and a govermental authority.

Related term: PCS

Number of jobs performed in a specific time period. Typically measured in mv/h or crane cycles per hour or bx/h.

Quay Crane, rail mounted gantry crane for loading / discharging vessels in a terminal.

See berth capacity.

A restack occurs whenever a container has to be digged out in the stack, because an other container (or more) are located above.

Rail Mounted Gantry crane for container storage.

Rubber Tire Gantry crane, mobile gantry crane for container storage driving on wheels. Typically the transfer to the horizontal transport is on the side of the block, as most RTG are not allowed to travel with  a container at the hook.

Straddle Carrier, container terminal equipment for transporting and stacking containers in the yard. Typical 1 over 3 (the SC may pass 3 stacked containers with one container at the spreader).

Shuttle Carrier. Subspecies of a Straddle Carrier, container terminal equipment for transporting containers inside of the terminal. Typical 1 over 0 or 1 over 1 (the ShC may pass 0/1 stacked containers with one container at the spreader).

Based on the forecasted workflow on the terminal dueing the next planning period (shift) the shift planning organizes the work schedule for the equipment as well as for the work queues. Sub-tasks are yard planning and equipment allocation.

Simulation is a method for reproducing a system with its dynamic processes in a model with which one can experiment to gain insights that are transferable to the reality. (Own translation from VDI 3633).

In ports and terminals simulation is typically applied to visualise, check and optimize terminal capacity, layout and strategies during the planning phase. Moreover it's applied to forecast future developments and planned processes.

A reproduction of a real system (e.g. container terminal) including it's dynamic processes to visualise and analyse the behaviour of the System.

Ship-to-Shore crane, similar to quay crane.

Two 40" boxes are taken with just one lift of a crane using a tandem-spreader (side-by-side).

Phase in the teminal development and planning with the main focus on the layout of the terminal. The layout includes the quay side layout incl. quay crane location and layout, stacking block layout, traffic network incl. gate and rail, location of special areas (e.g. freight station, reefer area, oversize area, etc.). In this phase the basics are determined, which have impacts to all processes.

The Terminal Operating System (TOS) is the administrative system. It collects all data and saves them in the database. Further-more most planning activities (berth planning, stowage planning, yard planning, vessel service planning including crane split, etc) are located within the TOS. Thus the TOS generates all orders that have to be processed by the equipment and operators.

The TOS is making all decisions on the terminal. Thus it has to know the state of all parts of ther terminal and has to send ist decisions about the next jobs to be executed to the terminal equipment. To get the states and to send the job information interfaces between the TOS and the related objects have to be in place. Furthermore the TOS has to inform the environment (authorities, stakeholders, etc.) about the state of operation.

Terminal operators are responsible for all processes of discharging/loading vessels, stacking the goods at the terminal and discharging/loading trucks and trains at the land-side. Besides the operational processes all paperwork and administrative processes incl. all activities with local authorities have to be handled by the terminal operator.

Company or person who is developing a terminal from the scratch or is planning expansions/reorganisations of existing brownfield terminals.

Twenty foot ground Slots.

The Terminal Logistic System is situated between the TOS and the FMS. As the FMS' are only working on a local level, also their optimization results will only be regarding the local conditions. In fact the TLS will combine these local results to optimize the whole terminal operation.

The Terminal Operating System (TOS) is the administrative system. It collects all data and saves them in the database. Further-more most planning activities (berth planning, stowage planning, yard planning, vessel service planning including crane split, etc) are located within the TOS. Thus the TOS generates all orders that have to be processed by the equipment and operators.

Terminal Tractor, equipment for the horizontal transport inside the terminal, typically manual-driven.

The TOS is making all decisions on the terminal. Thus it has to know the state of all parts of ther terminal and has to send ist decisions about the next jobs to be executed to the terminal equipment. To get the states and to send the job information interfaces between the TOS and the related objects have to be in place. Furthermore the TOS has to inform the environment (authorities, stakeholders, etc.) about the state of operation.

The TOS may be seen as the brain of the terminal. As all IT systems it has to be tested before it goes live on the real terminal. This may be supported by Virtual Terminals. Besides the core functionality also the efficiency of the TOS and the parameter settings in the TOS may be tested and improved.

Users of the TOS have to be trained in the respective part of the TOS dependent on their responsibility. In a first level users have to understand where to find which functionality and which information has to be entered where.
In a second level the user -especially the control staff and planning teams- the users may learn how the system reacts on their entries and which parameter configuration fits best to the current situation on the terminal.
Especially this second level may be supported by Virtual Terminal functioning as a test-bed for the control system TOS. Users may improve their abilities by "playing around" in the virtual world without influencing the real terminal processes at all.

Two 20" boxes are taken with just one lift of a crane using a twin-spreader (end-by-end).

a) of a stack: ratio of used slots versus available slots. High utilisation occurs, if the operational utilisation is reached.

b) equipment: ratio of operational time versus full time period regarded. Operational time may include the waiting time for other equipment or not. High utilisation occurs if the equipment has nearly no idle time

Vehicle Booking System, web-based application for appointment management for external trucks, sometimes part of PCS.

Verified Gross Mass, required for any container to be loaded to a vessel.

The Virtual Terminal is a species of a simulation model of a real container terminal. It covers all processes around discharge, loading, transportation and stacking of containers. Contrary to a simulation model of the terminal it does not include the decision making out of the TOS. In fact the Virtual Terminal is coupled with the real TOS (or a test instance of it)  and all decisions are made by the TOS itself. Thus the Virtual Terminal may be seen as a test-bed for the TOS. The technical term of this technology is emulation instead of simulation.

Providing an (animated) picture to explain the content of data. 3D visualisation uses 3D models of objects and model their behaviour. May be used to showcase planned.

Time, which occurs if a device (crane or tranport equipment) is waiting for an other device to proceed with the current job (see also idle time).

Workload is the amount of work an individual piece of equipment has to do. E.g. the work-queue of an STS may be 150 importers, 90 exporters in a shift.

Terminal area where the goods (e.g. containers) are stored/stacked between delivery to the terminal until they leave again via vessel, truck or train.

Yard Planning is responsible for the planning and allocation of all physical containers in the yard. The main task of the yard planning is to avoid restacking of containers as well as unneccessary long distances during the delivery to the quay-side, gate or rail area.