Mobility Patterns of Trailers Around International Container Terminals: A Case Study in Sendai Port, Japan

Container transport is widely used in logistics, and understanding the movement patterns of container trailers can improve logistics efficiency. Despite the availability of vehicle GPS data, studies focusing on container trailers in port areas are still limited. This study uses ETC2.0 data to extract trailer trajectories that visited Sendai Port in northern Japan. This port is of moderate size, allowing for the collection of a substantial amount of data, yet not so extensive that it precludes detailed analysis of individual cases. Analysis of the stop points of the trailers entering the container terminal shows similar characteristics to those observed in bigger Japanese ports. Since detecting stops alone may not capture visits to locations relevant to understanding trailer mobility, this study proposes a method to detect even short visits to such places. This method enabled the characterization between trailers transporting empty containers and those carrying loaded containers to the container terminal by the locations visited before and after accessing the container terminal.