@InProceedings{vidal10a,
  author =	 {Jos\'{e} M Vidal and Nathan Huynh},
  title =	 {Building Agent-Based Models of Seaport Container
                  Terminals},
  booktitle =	 {Proceedings of 6th Workshop on Agents in Traffic and
                  Transportation},
  year =	 2010,
  abstract =	 { Agent-based models are increasingly being used to
                  simulate and analyze various transportation
                  problems, from traffic flow to air traffic
                  control. One transportation industry that has not
                  received as much attention from the multi-agent
                  systems community is seaport container terminals. It
                  can be argued that the operations that take place at
                  a container terminal are as complex as that of an
                  airport. A seaport container terminal faces a myriad
                  of operational challenges such as optimizing berth
                  space, minimizing ship turnaround time, maximizing
                  use of resources, and reducing wait time of drayage
                  trucks. Due to environmental concerns, terminal
                  operators and port planners are focusing on the
                  problem of reducing the in-terminal wait time of
                  drayage trucks. In this paper, we present our
                  multiagent model of a container yard operation, its
                  implementation using NetLogo, and some initial test
                  results. We model yard cranes as opportunistic
                  utility-maximizing agents using several different
                  utility functions for comparison purposes. By using
                  a representative layout of a terminal our simulation
                  model allows us to analyze the behavior of the
                  cranes and evaluate the collective performance of
                  the system. We demonstrate that it is possible to
                  build a realistic and useful model of yard crane
                  operation. Our test results show that utility
                  functions that give higher precedence to nearby
                  trucks lead to much better results than those that
                  favor serving trucks on a mostly first-come
                  first-serve order.},
  url = 	 {http://jmvidal.cse.sc.edu/papers/vidal10a.pdf}
}