New perspectives in decision support for port planning

The Decision-Support-System (DSS) to be presented within this paper is based on research done at the department of Computer Science of the Technical University of Berlin. Among the research conducted at the subdepartment for Applied Computer Science, the project “Determination of the Capacity of Ports” was one point of focus in the years 1980–1985. Findings of this research work as well as practical experiences helped in underpinning the knowledge of the decision processes in seaports; all this contributed to the development of a practice-oriented DSS. All parts of the system, including the data base, were programmed in SIMULA and implemented on the IBM 4381-2 of the Technical University of Berlin. Before the system is applied in an actual problem situation, all parts of the system, particularly the integrated simulation model, will have to be validated. Not until this validation has been done, will the decision makers have sufficient confidence regarding the decision support of this system. This validation is still being worked on. Further research is focused on the application of the DSS for similar decision problems in other traffic and transportation systems.