SIMPLE ALGORITHM OF DENSE PACKING SEVERAL TYPES OF STANDARD CARGOES IN A GROUP OF WAGONS

Kataeva L. Y.

One of the priority areas is the automation and optimization of the railcar loading process.This paper describes an algorithm for orthogonal dense packing of several types of standard cargo into a group of wagons and gives examples of simulation based on this algorithm. The algorithm is based on the combination of the method of dynamic programming with memoization. To improve the efficiency of the algorithm, a criterion for evaluating each type of cargo for the convenience of packing it into a wagon is introduced. The target function in this case takes into account the partial loading of the last container. It is assumed that we have a lot of cargo of each kind. The heuristics of the packing algorithm for different sets of input data are investigated. It is found that the classical heuristics are more efficient for the case of packing a large number of heterogeneous cargoes, but the efficiency of the dynamic programming algorithm with memoization when combining heuristics for the inconvenience factor for loading specific cargo types increases when there are a large number of multiple cargo types. The results show that the use of such combination of algorithms leads to minimization of the number of railcars required for cargo transportation.

Keywords:cargo packing, wagon group, optimization, dynamic programming.