Hello everyone,

My name is Caner, and I'm a PhD student. I need help with the simulation aspect of my dissertation. Simply put, I need to model a ferry line. I've got the following information:

- Ferry specifications including power, speed, fuel capacity, fuel consumption in litres per nautical mile, passenger and car capacity, and more.

- Price of fuel per litre,

- Coordinates or distances of piers,

- Where ferries are moored,

- Timetables of all lines.

What I need to do first:

- Define piers and ferries,

- Setup lines between piers,

- Define timetables to those lines,

- Make each ferry pick up a line, depart from the pier as per the timetable,

- Go back to the starting positions after completing the schedule.

Second step:

- Set different schedules for weekdays and weekends,

- Define fuel capacity, fuel consumption and monitor fuel usage of each ferry,

Third step:

- Make a ferry go to refuel when fuel capacity reaches a certain threshold: e.g. if the fuel is less than 1 trips worth, alert another ferry to take over its next scheduled departure and go to refuel)

- Get a report of when and how much fuel the ferry got refuelled.

Fourth Step:

- Introduce passenger and cars to be carried for each trip as per a demand formula. Get a report about how many passengers transported.

Fifth Step:

-Remove fossil fuel ferries and introduce electric ferries to the same model.

-Add recharging ability to the piers.

-See the results and calculate the lowest required power and fuel (battery) capacity for the lowest yearly cost of operating electric ferries.

So far I've looked into FlexSim, Promodel, Process Simulator, PTV Vissim, Any Logic and a few other sim software I couldn't get to run properly. My problem is that it will take quite a long time for me to learn to code for each software and I don't have any time to waste.

Looking for suggestions on using which software and how to obtain each step.

All help is appreciated.

Note: At this point, I'm thinking about ship simulation games. Ship Simulator Extremes had great sea and weather simulation options. Is there a way that I could directly design the above scenarios on such a ship simulation game? Maybe that could bring more reliable results and easier configuration.