QUEUEING THEORY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF OPTIMIZATION OPERATIONAL AND ECONOMIC SPHERE OF PORT TERMINALS - CASE STUDY

Background: The maritime port terminals, handling cargo and servicing maritime and land means of transport with variable intensity over time, operate as mass service systems where the process of notifying and fulfilling needs usually occur at random. The main research problem was to determine the interdependence between the mechanism of reporting and meeting the demand for terminal services and its effectiveness measured in terms of operational efficiency and profitability.

Methods: The aim of research involves evaluating the terminal operational mechanism and evaluating it under operational categories, that is, operational stability and efficiency, and economic ones, i.e., effectiveness with respect to costs and revenue. To achieve the aim of research, the theory of mass service was applied, with the use of queuing theory as well as case study. The research was conducted in an example of bulk handling terminal, i.e. HES Gdynia Bulk Terminal.

Results: In the article, the authors assumed that the bulk cargo handling terminal in Gdynia operates as a queueing model. Therefore, it was possible to analyse the operating mechanism of the selected port terminal as a logistics system and a link in the supply chain by characterising it in terms of technical and operational efficiency and economic and financial effectiveness.

Conclusions: So far, such terminals have not the subject of this kind research, because researchers focused predominantly on seaports as composite multimodal transport nodes. The results of the conducted research confirm the previously formulated hypothesis, indicating that queueing theory can be used  as an useful instrument to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of bulk cargo terminals.