The article proposes a mathematical model of terminal cargo handling based on a probabilistic approachthat takes into account the arrival of cargo at the terminal. The supplier-terminal-destination systems are systems with distributed parameters, which means that the optimization of the time spent by goods at the terminal and the quality of their material condition is ensured by the methods of vector parameter optimization. The authors reduce the dimensionality of the technical parameters of the transport system, after which they optimize the discretized parameters of the system. Using the results of the research in this article to optimize transportation and terminal cargo handling will increase the productivity of transportation and minimize economic losses due to cargo damage.