Information integration and intelligent control of port logistics system

Port logistics (PL) can be defined as the process of planning, implementing and controlling the flow of goods and information between the sea and inland via ports and the other way around. PL systems concern the development of functions to support activities including sea side and land side transportation, cargo storage, order processing, and distribution. Increasing demand and a highly competitive market have forced PL systems to continuously improve their performance, including their operational efficiency and reliability. A key issue is the improvement of decision-making abilities. Decision-making systems play an important role within PL systems, especially as they consider the ways that different processes, operations, and equipment can be controlled and coordinated. With the support of ICT technologies, the decision-making systems have significantly developed. However, several decision making processes lack sufficient ICT support. As a result, the benefits of integrating new ICT supports are unknown, including their benefits for inland vessel coordination and the equipment reliability assessments. The goal of this thesis is to develop an ICT framework to support the decision-making processes and ultimately improve the performance of PL systems. To do so, a hierarchical ICT framework is designed, which consists of two major components: a middleware and an intelligent decision-making approach. With regards of selecting middleware, an agent system is chosen. Likewise, for the selection of intelligent decision making approach, the meta-heuristics approach is chosen to aid the collaborative planning, whereas context-aware system is chosen for the reliability assessment. To further integrate the selected ICT technologies, a hierarchical framework is designed, which contains three layers: an agent model layer, an agent control layer, and an agent management layer. At the agent model layer, the problems are decomposed and modelled as an agent. At the agent control layer, a coordinate agent is integrated with the intelligent decision-making approach to establish control and coordination. Finally, at the agent management layer, the agent communication facility is established...