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The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.9144 meter. A distance of 1,760 yards is equal to 1 mile. The US survey yard is very slightly longer. Name The term, yard derives from the Old English gerd, gyrd etc., which was used for branches, staves and measuring rods. It is first attested in the late 7th century laws of Ine of Wessex, where the "yard of land" mentioned is the yardland, an old English unit of tax assessment equal to hide. Around the same time the Lindisfarne Gospels account of the messengers from John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew used it for a branch swayed by the wind. In addition to the yardland, Old and Middle English both used their forms of "yard" to denote the surveying lengths of or , used in computing acres, a distance now usually

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Imperial units

The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measur

International System of Units

The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (for Système International), is the modern form of the metric sys

Metre

The metre (or meter in American spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). The metre was originally defined in 1791 as one ten-millionth of the dista

Yard traffic and congestion in container terminals

Michel Bierlaire, Matteo Salani, Ilaria Vacca, Arnaud Vandaele

In container terminals, the yard is the zone where containers are stored: it serves as a buffer for loading, unloading and transshipping containers. Yard is usually the bottleneck of the terminal, as traffic, congestion and capacity issues mainly originate from there. A berth&yard allocation plan assigns ships to berths and containers to yard blocks: a typical objective is to minimize the total distance traveled by the carriers to transfer containers from the quayside to the yard. Although congestion issues are usually disregarded, operations are often slowed down because of overloaded areas in the yard. In particular, we are interested in evaluating and reducing traffic congestion induced by the berth&yard allocation plan at the operational level. In this work, we firstly present quantitative indicators we devised to measure congestion in the terminal network and to capture its effects on terminals efficiency. These measures are then combined to provide new objective functions, other than traveled distance, which are used in the design of berth&yard templates; a local search algorithm which minimizes congestion is presented. Computational results are analyzed and discussed.

2009

Optimization at Container Terminals: Status, Trends and Perspectives

Michel Bierlaire, Matteo Salani, Ilaria Vacca

International sea-freight container transportation has grown dramatically over the last years and container terminals represent nowadays a key actor in the global shipping network. Terminal managers have to face with an increasing competitiveness among terminals, which require more and more efficiency in container operations both along the quayside and within the yard: the objective is usually to minimize ships turnaround time, one of the main indicators of the terminal performance for the shipping companies. Moreover the minimization of operational costs directly entails the achievement of competitive terminal fares, thus increasing the attractiveness for new customers. Operations research methods and techniques are therefore worth being used in optimizing terminal operations. In this work, we first give an overview of decision problems which arise in the management of a container terminal (e.g. berth allocation, quay crane scheduling, storage policies and strategies, transfer operations, ship stowage planning). Then, starting from a collaboration with some of the busiest ports in Europe, we have identified some critical issues which will be illustrated: in particular, we focus on the impact that gate operations and transshipment operations have on the yard and we propose a new approach to the yard management which takes into account these interactions. We conclude with suggestions of possible research tracks and open issues.

2007

Optimization at Container Terminals: Status, Trends and Perspectives

Michel Bierlaire, Matteo Salani, Ilaria Vacca

Over the last years, international sea-freight container transportation has grown dramatically and container terminals play nowadays a key-role in the global shipping network. The increased competitiveness among terminals requires more and more efficiency in container operations, both along the quayside and within the yard, in order to minimize ships turnaround time. Operations research methods and techniques are therefore worth being used in optimizing terminal operations. In this work, we first give an overview of decision problems which arise in the management of a container terminal (e.g. berth allocation, crane scheduling, storage policies and strategies, transfer operations) and we briefly describe models and methods presented in the literature. Then, starting from a collaboration with some of the busiest ports in Europe, we have identified some critical issues which will be illustrated: in particular, we focus on the impact that gate operations and transshipment operations have on the yard and we propose a new approach to the yard management which takes into account these interactions. We conclude with suggestions of possible research tracks and open issues.

2007

AR-456: Urbanism in Asia

Le centre de gravité de l'urbanisation du monde se déplace vers le continent asiatique. Quelles sont les singularités propres aux villes d'Asie? Comment se fabriquent-elles? Comment qualifier ces pratiques urbaines? Quelles sont leurs particularités culturelles et sociales?