The issue of introducing a quality criterion by the port to ensure competitiveness in the market of loading and unloading services is considered in the paper. It is noted that the quality criteria can be provided if the characteristics of the port handling equipment correspond to the calculated data on performance and reliability. It is emphasized that the formation of a fleet of port handling equipment (optimization), which is necessary after identifying "weak" points in the operation process, is a key task of port management. Cargo turnover, cost of technological processes, port capacity and warehouse capacity depend on the port handling equipment (various technological schemes of port operation depend on the equipment). In order to determine the economic effect of the introduction of new technological solutions or technical re-equipment, expressed in complete or partial replacement of the port handling equipment fleet, not only the costs of purchasing new equipment, the costs associated with changing the loading and unloading technology, but also the operating costs of maintaining the port handling equipment in working order are taken into account. The choice of port handling equipment is a task on which the economic performance of the port depends. To select the port reloading equipment, a model of the operation of the technological line, built on the basis of the Petri net apparatus, is considered. This model formalizes the process of functioning the technological line and models logical connections between events. The model of functioning the port technological line considers solutions to conflict situations, the analysis of which shows that they are related to the technical condition of the port handling equipment fleet, its performance and technical conditions. It is concluded that the combination of solutions to conflict situations affects the economic efficiency of the port. The obtained simulation data are taken into account when selecting the port handling equipment. Based on the obtained performance data of port cargo handling equipment fleet, the annual cargo turnover of the port is planned and the main characteristics of the service quality (speed of vehicle service, average waiting time of vehicle service) are identified.