This work aims to : establish a model of the container physical distribution system of Pusan port comprising 4 sub-systems of a navigational system, on-dock cargo handling/transfer/storage system, off-dock CY system and an in-land transport system : examine the system regarding the cargo handling capability of the port and analyse the cost of the physical distribution system. The overall findings are as follows : Firstly in the navigational system, average tonnage of the ships visiting the Busan container terminal was 33,055 GRT in 1990. The distribution of the arrival intervals of the ships' arriving at BCTOC was exponential distribution of Y=e-x/5.52 with 95% confidence, whereas that of the ships service time was Erlangian distribution(K=4) with 95% confidence, Ships' arrival and service pattern at the terminal, therefore, was Poisson Input Erlangian Service, and ships' average waiting times was 28.55 hours In this case 8berths were required for the arriving ships to wait less than one hour. Secondly an annual container through put that can be handled by the 9cranes at the terminal was found to be 683,000 TEU in case ships waiting time is one hour and 806,000 TEU in case ships waiting is 2 hours in-port transfer capability was 913,000 TEU when berth occupancy rate(9) was 0.5. This means that there was heavy congestion in the port when considering the fact that a total amount of 1,300,000 TEU was handled in the terminal in 1990. Thirdly when the cost of port congestion was not considered optimum cargo volume to be handled by a ship at a time was 235.7 VAN. When the ships' waiting time was set at 1 hour, optimum annual cargo handling capacity at the terminal was calculated to be 386,070 VAN(609,990 TEU), whereas when the ships' waiting time was set at 2 hours, it was calculated to be 467,738 VAN(739,027 TEU). Fourthly, when the cost of port congestion was considered optimum cargo volume to be handled by a ship at a time was 314.5 VAN. When the ships' waiting time was set at I hour optimum annual cargo handling capacity at the terminal was calculated to be 388.416(613.697 TEU), whereas when the ships' waiting time was set 2 hours, it was calculated to be 462,381 VAN(730,562 TEU).

• C.H. Park
• C.Y. Lee