question

You can check out the post below. It uses a proximity agent system to detect when the cranes get too close and reroutes one of them in the other direction.

https://answers.flexsim.com/questions/100306/crane-collision-logic-with-agent-system.html

I designed a similar system a while ago that uses kinematics to move the objects. It tries to reduce the amount of unneeded movement by pre-calculating how far any traveller can move based on the current target coordinates of its neighbors.

If a traveller is blocked, the blocker is pushed out of the way if possible and, crucially, potential deadlocks when two travellers have to move through each other to get to their target are handled by giving one of them priority and suspending the movement of the other for the time being.

The attached model is an early concept and doesn't feature many comments in the code or documentation, so it will be hard to get an understanding of it. I wanted to share it nonetheless as a possible other approach.

OutputRail_ProofOfConcept_8.fsm