Maritime highways to a port - modelling of maximum capacity

Maritime ports are a vital link in the national and international cargo transport chain and their efficient functioning is critical for an economy with large volumes of international trade. Queueing theory and related numerical models are used to optimise the port throughput, both for existing ports and for new or extended ports. Several relationships are shown which can fruitfully be employed to investigate components of the port logistics chain. An application for the extension of an ore export port is shown as a case study.