Exploring congestion impact beyond the bulk cargo terminal gate

Bulk cargo terminal congestion management, approaches have tended to be almost exclusively focused on the sea side of bulk terminals. To-date there has been very limited work on land-side approaches to mitigate congestion in bulk terminals. This research aims to address these gaps by considering the effectiveness of multiple congestion management methods across a range of throughput scenarios. This paper develops a discrete event simulation model based on data collected from an Australian bulk wood chip export maritime terminal and analyses the effect of infrastructure and process improvements on gate congestion and hinterland logistics chains. The improvements include: variations of terminal configurations, a terminal appointment system and gate automation technology. This paper argues that traditional efficiency and utilization measures fail to capture the impact of these alternatives over the whole hinterland logistics chain. Results indicate that the gate automation technology and the introduction of an appointment system can reduce average turnaround times by approximately 20%. Interestingly additional unloading capacity has a relatively small influence (<10%) on the average turnaround time under the initial truck arrival frequency. Significantly, findings highlight how the range of alternatives that improve efficiency and utilization can be impaired when organizations do not plan and negotiate impacts with other terminal users along the hinterland logistics chain. The impact of these alternatives needs to be evaluated in the broader hinterland perspective to enhance stakeholder 'buy-in' and resilience over time of solutions implemented.