Today, most large port hubs include the circular economy transformation challenge, together with smart digitalization and Internet of Things (IoT), in their strategic priorities. However, many ports ...do not seem to have progressed beyond incremental, small-scale sustainable innovations or the support of rather fragmented sustainability initiatives. The challenges are complex, since ports do not only have to reconsider their own core activities but also their role in the supply chain of shippers, to lift themselves out of the linear lock-in. Opportunities are also created, and port authorities and businesses need to embrace circular learning and turn these projects into sustainable business models. This strategic change or refocus requires new insights into innovative governance and business frameworks, the link between strategy and commercially viable business models, systems innovation, intensified stakeholder collaboration and co-creation, altered traffic segments and hinterland focus, amongst others. These Special Issue articles address current CE transition concerns salient to port strategists and managers, such as first strategic changes towards circular ports, building awareness on the importance of sustainability data and available space, and how port authorities can develop circular business models.
This study is timely because several investments are planned for container terminals in Sub-Saharan Africa. From a public policy perspective, disentangling the reasons behind cargo delays in ports is ...crucial to understanding:a) whether projects by the World Bank and other donors have addressed the most salient problems; and b) whether institutional port reform and infrastructure, sometimes complemented by customs reform, are the most appropriate approaches or should be adapted. Without such identification and quantification, projects may ultimately result in a limited impact, and structural problems of long delays will remain. Dwell time figures are a major commercial instrument used to attract cargo and generate revenues. Therefore, the incentives for a port authority and a container terminal operator are increasingly strong to lower the real figure to attract more cargo. At the same time, ports are more and more in competition, so the question of how to obtain independently verifiable dwell time data is increasingly critical to provide assurance that interventions are indeed having the intended effect.
In recent decades, port efficiency has been widely studied by evaluating the use of the physical factors related to the endowment of infrastructure. However, ports are service providers, so in the ...production of port cargo services, the time efficiency in port operations matters. In fact, it is a key factor of port competitiveness, especially when shipping lines come to making port choice decisions. Despite the importance of time-related metrics in the port industry, there is a lack of empirical research measuring time efficiency in port operations. Therefore, the present research aims to study the port efficiency of the major Mediterranean container ports by including the variable berth time to capture the effective usage of the physical inputs. In this regard, the paper aims to identify whether there are differences between the efficiency scores obtained distinguishing between transhipment and gateway/mixed ports. To conduct the analysis, a non-parametric DEA metafrontier approach is used to account for heterogeneity problem related to the type of ports concerned. The results show that the transhipment hub ports are more efficient than gateway/mixed ports in the Mediterranean Sea. Factors explaining this result are explored and analysed in depth.
This paper evaluates how port institutional reforms influenced efficiency gains between 1991 and 2004. We constructed a panel data for port ownership, corporate structure, and port inputs and outputs ...for 98 major world ports, and we implemented the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) model. The MPI provides efficiency measures for input combinations that allow for obtaining the outputs in the presence of institutional reforms, ownership changes, main agent problems, technological progress, efficient scale growth, and many other reasons for efficiency and the lack of it. The results illustrate that ownership restructuring contributed to total factor productivity gains. The restructuring induced optimized operation of container terminals, especially for large ports, as it allowed specialized private entities to concentrate on terminal operation and cargo handling services.
Energy efficiency has emerged as a key point in port industry because of different factors such as the adoption of stronger environmental regulations and the increasing pressure of the local ...community on the surrounding ports. As gathering operational data from port terminals can be difficult due to privacy, studies on emissions and energy efficiency of these terminals are scarce. The following research provides key information about the real energy consumption and CO2 emissions of one of the most relevant container terminals in the Mediterranean area, located in Valencia, Spain. The results show that yard terminal tractors and rubber tyred gantry cranes (RTGs) are the main emission sources, accounting for 68.1% of the terminal's total CO2 emissions. After identifying the equipment responsible for the environmental problem, two solutions aimed at improving the energy efficiency of the terminal have been studied: the retrofitting of RTGs cranes and the replacement of terminal tractors powered by fuel for a new liquefied natural gas tractor, which contributed to a large reduction of CO2 emissions. Additionally, the present research explores the different policies at the disposal of port authorities in order to foster the implementation of solutions aimed at mitigating the environmental externalities by terminal operators.
•The CO2 emissions of a Spanish port container terminal were studied.•Yard tractors and RTGs accounted for 68.1% of the terminal's total CO2 emissions.•LNG yard terminal tractors could reach up a reduction to 24% of total kg of CO2/h.•The retrofitting of RTG cranes would reduce CO2 emissions by 43%.•The most common policies adopted by different PAs around the world were analysed.
The goal of this paper is to explore the intersection between two streams of literature: port cities and port-centric logistics. While many ports have moved out of city locations, partly facilitated ...by intermodal corridors, some ports remain in city locations, many retaining a large share of distribution activity in or near the port. This paper will consider distribution challenges arising from the port-city dynamic in relation to the port-inland distribution axis, in particular the role of port and city planners and decision makers in managing this process. The case analysis is based on the Port of Gothenburg, the largest port in Scandinavia.
Findings suggest that the majority of influencing factors are marginally in favour of siting distribution facilities inland rather than near the port, yet city planning and national sentiment continue to incentivise development near the port. There are two conclusions for the port-centric city. First, it needs to coordinate its logistics from a regional perspective, determine what activities belong near the port and not compete with inland locations for what is better located there. Second, port-centric logistics needs to be better aligned with an urban freight transport and city logistics perspective.
This Port Reform Toolkit, consisting of
eight modules, presents background information, concrete
examples, and specific tools and methods that public
officials can use to make effective, sustainable ...reforms of
public institutions that provide port services in developing
countries. In particular it focuses on understanding the
needs, challenges and risks for sector reform; choosing
among options for private sector participation and analyzing
their implications; preparing legislation, contracts and
institutional charters to govern private sector
participation; managing the transition to increased private
sector involvement. The Toolkit presents "best
international practices" in a manner that is relevant
to decision-makers. The Toolkit is designed to be easily
understood by non-specialists. Thus, it attempts to make
general points with concrete examples. It is illustrated
with experience drawn from recent port reform activities
around the world.
From the policy and management perspective, this study aims to investigate the port management tools that port/public authorities have at their disposal and then to analyse to what extent the tools ...are used to enforce or encourage green port development at functional activities of port operations and development. We conduct an exploratory and comparative review based on two axes: on the one hand, the range of tools available to port authorities (pricing, monitoring and measuring, market access control and environmental standard regulation) and on the other hand, the functional activities in ports (shipping traffic, cargo handling and storage operations, intermodal connection, industrial activities, and port expansion). The situations in the leading ports in Asia and Europe, namely Singapore, Shanghai, Antwerp and Rotterdam are studied and compared, whereby the policies' effectiveness is discussed accordingly. Findings show that the ports are particularly mature in exercising environmental standard regulations which reveals that the enforcement approach is more prevalent. The most focused functional activity is shipping traffic which reflects that the ports are driven by the International Maritime Organisation. The respective port authorities in Antwerp and Rotterdam have a higher level of influence on devising green port policy in comparison to the two Asian ports.
•Integrated energy management and operations planning is suggested for ports as large scale energy end users.•Ports can significantly reduce costs with energy arbitrage and load-shifting under a ...demand response mechanism in a smart grid.•Benefits of using port microgrid with time-variant energy prices and storage units, and the value of different storage sizes are quantified.•The positive impact of harnessing renewable energy in ports is quantified.•Energy-aware operations contribute to sustainability in ports.
The importance of energy efficiency and demand response management while harnessing renewable energy draws more attention from many industries in recent years. Seaports, as large scale end-users, aim to adopt energy management systems (EMS) since energy prices have increased over years and sustainable operations is a key target for greening the port industry. Many seaports start to install fully electrified equipment and use electricity as the source of energy because electricity consumption, instead of carbon-intensive energy sources, contributes to the climate change mitigation targets. In this study, a mixed integer linear programming model is suggested to solve the integrated operations planning and energy management problem for seaports with smart grid (e.g. port microgrid) considering uncertain renewable energy generation. The operations planning aims to determine the number of quay cranes (QCs) and yard equipment to assign to each ship for each one hour period. It also determines each ship’s berthing duration which affects the hourly energy consumption due to the cold ironing and the available reefer containers. These plans result in energy demand. Meanwhile, energy management matches energy demand and supply considering different energy pricing schemes and bidirectional energy trading between energy sources (e.g. utility grid, renewable energy sources) and energy storage systems. Results indicate that significant cost savings can be achieved with smart grid (port microgrid) compared to conventional settings. Deploying energy storage systems in port microgrid results in important cost savings. Energy consumption is dominated by QCs, cold-ironing and reefer containers. Finally ports which harness renewable energy obtain significant costs savings on total cost.
Climate-related disasters are causing increasing damage to seaports, necessitating investment in climate-change adaptation to enhance resilience. In addition, seaports must invest in capacity to meet ...the growing maritime demand. Given that the two types of investments are interdependent, we develop a game-theoretic model to determine the strategic investments a seaport should make in adaptation and capacity, considering inter-port competition. We consider three cases: profit-maximizing seaports, welfare-maximizing seaports, and first-best outcome. We show that a seaport facing higher climate risk invests less in capacity but do not necessarily invests more in adaptation. In addition, a seaport invests more in capacity and adaptation when its competitor faces a growing climate risk. Interestingly, given a high climate risk, inter-port competition leads to underinvestment in both capacity and adaptation. Lastly, our case study reveals that the most detrimental scenario for a port arises when its competitor adapts to changing climate while it does not.
