Connected Vehicles and Digital Infrastructures: A Framework for Assessing the Port Efficiency

Orlando Marco Belcore, Massimo Di Gangi and Antonio Polimeni ()
Additional contact information
Orlando Marco Belcore: Department of Engineering, University of Messina, 98166 Messina, Italy
Massimo Di Gangi: Department of Engineering, University of Messina, 98166 Messina, Italy
Antonio Polimeni: Department of Engineering, University of Messina, 98166 Messina, Italy

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: In logistics and freight distribution, scheduling and cost efficiency are two crucial issues for transportation companies that look with favour at the innovation introduced by Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Moreover, an infrastructure level of service, safety and environmental defence are important for planners and public administrations. In this sense, terminal capacity and landside operations at the maritime infrastructure represent an interesting task for the community. Thus, this paper contributes to the research by: (i) proposing a generic framework for the integration of autonomous and connected vehicles with physical infrastructures; (ii) evaluating the opportunity to manage traffic arrivals according to vehicles’ priority and testing the effects of the introduction of a buffer zone outside the maritime port; (iii) improving efficiency and security within the terminal area by reducing waiting time and avoiding interference between flows. Moreover, the proposal for a discrete-event simulation model to assess terminal capacity in a ro-ro terminal is presented. Therefore, the paper contributes to some critical aspects towards sustainable development. First, regarding policy measures and actions, it proposes a valuable tool to assess what-if scenarios. Secondly, it represents a step forward in the process of smart corridor design for freight vehicles; in fact, it proposes a tool for managing landside operations at maritime ports and focuses on intervention in solving specific barriers and bottlenecks for freight who cross a ro-ro terminal daily. Furthermore, it offers a viable solution for managing connected vehicles in a context where full automation still needs to be achieved. The results evidenced the framework’s capability to deal with the traffic demand, thus improving the efficiency of the terminal landside operations.

Keywords: ITS; smart port; discrete-event simulation; ro-ro terminal; autonomous vehicles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/10/8168/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/10/8168/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:10:p:8168-:d:1149390

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().