Technologies, Strategies and Modelling Issues for Smart Green Ports Design

Dear Colleagues,

In the current worldwide energy transition process, the attainment of a sustainable blue economy represents an essential element in achieving the climatic and environmental objectives set by the Sustainable Development Goals and by the European Green Deal. In this context, a dominant role emerges for the fundamental nodes of the blue economy: the ports.

Ports are a fundamental component of logistics chains; additionally, they represent one of the primary functional and environmental bottlenecks of the chain itself. Over the last decade, ports have enlarged their land and sea catchment areas and have observed a significant increase in terms of tons of freight and passengers’ volumes while retaining the same geographical locations, the same logistic areas, and the same constraints. Moreover, most ports are located in or nearby densely populated areas, with significant environmental, safety and social drawbacks.

Nowadays, the maritime ports sector must face a set of different and competing goals: to increase port efficiency, to pursue maritime transport decarbonisation, to reduce the safety issues, to minimize the social impacts on the involved communities, to support the passage to a circular economy, and to protect the marine environment.

The real challenge is to provide efficiency from not only the functional point of view, but also from the perspectives of energy consumption and environmental impact.

For this purpose, in the last decade, the technologic revolution occurring in the transportation sector has contributed to this challenge, making it possible to mitigate the main external impacts, reduce the internal cost and increase the overall efficiency of transport.

Different technological solutions have been developed in order to advance greener ports and greener ships (electrification, green engine and fuels, smart grids etc...); several different digital technologies allow researchers to collect data and store data (Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, etc..); a wide variety of methodologies offer to allow academics in the field to elaborate data and propose intelligent strategies (e.g. artificial intelligence); and different methodologies allow to manage port operations in more efficient, green and safe ways.

As a consequence, the following needs and challenges require attention:

(1) Methodological frameworks and simulation tools for simulating smart and green scenarios

(2) Methodological approaches for estimating the social and environmental impacts.

(3) Methodological approaches for optimizing the different components of a port

(4) The assessment of the different technologies and/or strategies that may let a port being smart, green and secure from both customer and passenger viewpoints.

The aim of this Special Issue is to investigate methods, technologies and their application to real case studies that improve the functional and environmental efficiency of smart ports.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Alternative marine fuel: developments and perspectives;
• Big data and smart ports;
• Cybersecurity for ports and terminals;
• Digital Twins for smart ports;
• Digitalization of the maritime supply chain;
• Electrification of smart ports;
• Evaluation and governance of green development practice of port;
• Evaluating the economic and environmental efficiency of ports;
• Fully Autonomous—Ports of the Future;
• Impact assessment of smart ports;
• Internet of Things and smart container technologies;
• Ports and the circular economy;
• Simulation and optimization of smart ports;
• Smart solutions and smart management for smart ports;
• Smart ports models.

We look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Prof. Dr. Stefano De Luca
Dr. Chiara Fiori
Guest Editors

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• smart ports
• green ports
• safe ports
• digitalization
• port simulation
• digital twins