Comparing Yard Strategies for High Transhipment Terminals

Selecting the right yard strategy for high transhipment terminals is no small decision. It affects everything from operational efficiency to equipment utilisation and your ability to handle peak volumes. Yet many terminal operators struggle to identify which approach best suits their specific needs. How do you balance the demands of waterside operations with storage capacity when most of your container movements involve ship-to-ship transfers? What impact does your yard strategy have on quay crane productivity? These are questions we help our clients answer every day.

At Portwise, we’ve observed how different yard strategies perform under various transhipment scenarios. Through our work with container terminals worldwide, we’ve gathered insights that can help you make more informed decisions about your yard operations. Let’s explore how you can evaluate different approaches to find the most effective solution for your terminal.

Understanding yard strategies for high transhipment terminals

Yard strategies are the systematic approaches terminals use to organise container storage and movement within the yard area. For high transhipment terminals – where containers move primarily between vessels rather than to land transport – these strategies become particularly important because they directly impact your ability to handle vessel calls efficiently.

The transhipment factor (the percentage of containers that are transhipped rather than moving to/from the hinterland) significantly influences yard requirements. With higher transhipment percentages, waterside handling capacity becomes increasingly critical, while landside capacity becomes less so. This shift fundamentally changes how you should configure your yard.

What makes a good yard strategy for transhipment operations? It’s one that balances three key demands:

• Sufficient waterside handling capacity to maintain quay crane productivity
• Appropriate storage capacity to accommodate volume surges
• Efficient container accessibility to minimise reshuffling

Your learning objective here should be to understand how different yard configurations respond to these demands at various transhipment levels.

What are the foundational yard strategy models?

Three primary yard strategy models dominate container terminal operations, each with distinct characteristics that make them more or less suitable for transhipment operations:

Wheeled operations involve storing containers on chassis, ready for immediate movement. While offering excellent accessibility and speed, this approach requires extensive land area, making it less common in high-density transhipment hubs where space is at a premium.

More relevant to transhipment terminals are grounded operations, where containers are stacked directly on the ground in blocks. This approach includes several sub-types:

• RTG (Rubber Tyred Gantry) systems: Flexible but with moderate density
• ASC (Automated Stacking Crane) systems: Higher density with automated operation
• RMG (Rail Mounted Gantry) systems: High density with good productivity

Finally, hybrid strategies combine elements of both approaches, often using grounded operations for most storage while maintaining wheeled areas for specific container categories or for operational flexibility.

The critical insight for transhipment terminals is that yard strategy must evolve with your transhipment ratio. What works perfectly at 40% transhipment may become highly inefficient at 80%.

How yard strategies affect operational workflow

Your yard strategy has profound effects on operational workflow, particularly in how it influences the interaction between quayside and yard operations. This relationship becomes even more critical in high transhipment environments.

In RTG terminals, for instance, our research has shown that as storage density increases, quay crane productivity can drop dramatically due to yard-related bottlenecks. When yard blocks become congested (above 85% occupancy), the ability to serve quay cranes efficiently deteriorates.

We’ve tested various yard strategies to address this challenge. One approach involves clustered multi-bay sets, which helps balance RTG workload even at high storage densities. Our simulation testing using TIMESQUARE showed that this strategy maintained good productivity at 85-90% density levels where traditional approaches failed.

The choice of equipment also significantly impacts workflow. Using ASC blocks, for example, requires careful consideration of block dimensions based on transhipment percentage. Our analysis shows that up to 50-60% transhipment, landside handling capacity is the critical demand determining block size. Between 60-80%, storage demand becomes the determining factor, and above 80%, waterside handling capacity becomes the primary concern.

Matching yard strategies to transhipment volume patterns

Selecting the optimal yard strategy requires a deep understanding of your terminal’s transhipment patterns. How much of your volume is transhipment? How large are your vessel calls? What are your typical container dwell times?

For terminals with transhipment percentages above 70%, several considerations become particularly important:

• Waterside transfer capacity must be prioritised
• Surge factor (temporary space for volume spikes) becomes critical
• Block dimensions should be optimised for waterside operations

Larger vessel call sizes, which are increasingly common, create more significant surge effects in the yard. This requires additional yard storage capacity to absorb these peaks. We address this through what we call the “surge factor” – additional yard space kept available specifically for short-duration volume surges.

How do you determine the right configuration? Terminal simulation tools like our TRAFALQUAR model can help evaluate how different yard strategies perform under varying transhipment scenarios, helping you identify the most effective approach for your specific conditions.

Implementing technology-enhanced yard management

The effectiveness of any yard strategy can be significantly enhanced through technology. For high transhipment terminals, several technological solutions are particularly valuable:

Terminal Operating Systems (TOS) with advanced planning algorithms can optimise container placement based on expected movements, reducing reshuffling and improving quay crane productivity. These systems become even more powerful when integrated with container terminal simulation tools.

Our TIMESQUARE simulation library allows us to create detailed models of terminal operations, including yard strategies. This approach enables us to test how different operational modes and equipment control systems perform under specific scenarios before implementation.

Automation technologies, from semi-automated RTGs to fully automated ASC blocks, can further enhance yard performance. However, these must be implemented thoughtfully. As our experience shows, well-designed automated terminals can achieve higher berth occupancy, yard occupancy, and equipment deployment rates than manual ones, but poorly designed automated facilities may underperform.

For high transhipment terminals, yard automation must be particularly focused on waterside performance, ensuring that automated equipment can handle the peak demands created by large vessel calls.

Bringing it all together: designing your optimal yard strategy

Designing an optimal yard strategy for your high transhipment terminal requires balancing multiple factors: transhipment percentage, expected volumes, space constraints, and investment capability. The process should be methodical, evidence-based, and forward-looking.

Start by analysing your current and projected transhipment patterns using reliable data. Then, identify potential industry challenges in your operation – particularly between quayside and yard operations. Based on this analysis, you can evaluate different yard configurations using simulation models to test how they would perform under your specific conditions.

Remember that robust terminal design doesn’t mean overbuilding – it means creating a facility that can adapt to changing conditions. Consider modularity in your yard design to allow for incremental expansion as needed.

At Portwise, we help terminal operators navigate these complex decisions through detailed analysis and simulation. By combining our port simulation expertise with your operational knowledge, we can develop yard strategies that maximise performance while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to future changes in shipping patterns.

The right yard strategy for your high transhipment terminal isn’t about following industry trends – it’s about finding the approach that best fits your specific operational profile, space constraints, and growth plans. With proper analysis and planning, you can develop a yard strategy that maintains high productivity even under the most challenging conditions.

Our comprehensive services include detailed simulation modeling, operational analysis, and strategy development to help you identify and implement the optimal yard configuration for your terminal’s unique requirements.

If you’re interested in learning more, reach out to our team of experts today.