Partners of the PortForward consortium from Brunel and Leitat visited the Port of Vigo from 17 to 21 June 2019. The extended visit was mainly aimed at defining the scope of the Green Yard Scheduler (GYS) as part of the “Green Scheduling and Sustainability of Operations” work package led by Brunel University London. The visit was hosted by the Port Authority of Vigo and Termavi, the operator of the container terminal, and was kicked off on June 17 by presentations from Leitat and Brunel regarding their up-to-date progress with the related tasks. Following the initial meetings, the Brunel team spent a full week with Port Authority and Termavi to gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the operations at Vigo’s container terminal. Through extensive interview sessions with members from the Port Authority and Termavi, as well as rigorous field observation of operations in action, the Brunel team tried to orient themselves with the problem specifications and characteristics, and to identify the areas of operational inefficiencies and potential rooms for improvements. The agenda of meetings and observations were mainly led by questioners that the Brunel team had put together beforehand as a result of a rigorous review on the extensive academic literature on the state-of-the-art in container terminal operations management and optimisation. Consequent to this fruitful visit, the partners from Brunel have been able to identify several pertinent problems to prioritise and choose from, and hence to scope the GYS.
