Maritime transportation is a favored mode of transportation, in which the goods are usually carried by containers.
A container is a standardized load unit, which is also suitable for road and rail transportation. Use of containers
reduces the amount of product packaging and possibility of damage. Therefore, this mode of transportation has
increased remarkably over the last few decades (Steenken et al., 2004).
A container terminal is an interim storage area, where container vessels dock on berths, unload inbound
containers and load outbound containers. Terminals include storage yards for temporary storage of the incoming
containers. Figure 1 illustrates a schematic representation of typical operations and equipment in container terminals,
including quay cranes for loading and unloading of the docked vessels, trucks and trailers for carrying containers
within the terminal area, and rubber mounted gantry cranes (RMG) for stacking containers in the storage yard