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Maritime supply chain (MarSC) stakeholders interact with third parties (e.g. freight forwarders, 3PLs, financial institutes, custom authorities) to facilitate the cargo flow and exchange of information, documents, or financials. Hence, MarSC stakeholders are increasingly interested in innovative technological solutions that vouch for the authenticity and/or the ownership of digital assets without the control of a central third party. Extended research is carried out to prove how applications based on the distributed ledger technology or blockchain address these requirements, yet limited research investigates their purchasing process and economic implications. This paper uses the phytosanitary certificate in an international supply chain flow as a case study where interaction between multiple stakeholders is fundamental and analyses the purchase scenarios of a blockchain-based tool. To do so, it uses a theoretical model that identifies and quantifies the costs and benefits incurred by MarSC stakeholders, formulates gain-sharing scenarios and presents the results of a sensitivity analysis to show the dependence between the data-use and the potential economic gains it generates. The results show that freight forwarders could share economic benefits with shippers or consignees to anticipate purchasing a blockchain-based tool.

Artificial intelligence (AI) developments enable human capability to deliver the same outcome at a lower cost. This research performs a high-level matching between AI solutions and challenges within the port area by developing a novel academic approach. This way, the matching is carried out more structured than when one (manager, developer, challenge owner, etc.) fulfils it based on their opinion without following any structured approach. Therefore, the study defines first a comprehensive typology of port stakeholders' challenges, which can be solved via AI solutions. This typology presents challenges, including their main issues, widespread impact, and potential solutions. A state-of-the-art review of AI solutions that can address these challenges is carried out in parallel. Secondly, this review clearly distinguishes between AI solutions based on their technology and functionality. Thirdly, this research selects an appropriate AI solution for addressing each identified challenge in the port operation by upgrading the Gale-Shapley algorithm. Finally, it shows that the most critical presented AI solutions in this study use various machine learning (ML) techniques. Besides, concerning the AI solution's reusability feature and the result of high-level matching, this research shows that the implementation phase effort can be drastically reduced by using the recently developed matching algorithm.

Today, several research/initiatives exist in AI technology at the port operation. They mainly focus on solution development in a particular port and shipping industry domain. This scattered implementation leads to an unstructured overview of the port sector regarding AI innovation in use. Equally, this study aims to structure this overview for aligning stakeholders and AI providers toward implementation. In doing so, the first step would be collecting the port stakeholders' insight regarding AI implementation. This study develops a structured framework to collect the port stakeholders' insight through both desk and empirical research. Besides, an online survey is built based on the framework and sent to a target group of port stakeholders to collect their insight. The survey results show that a huge effort is needed to establish a structure for data exchange to increase the quality of data. Additionally, by highlighting the importance of data from specific stakeholders, developers can effectively convey the value proposition to these stakeholders. They can emphasize how utilizing this vital data can result in operational enhancements, cost reductions, improved decision-making, and competitive advantages. As an implication, alignment between port stakeholders and AI providers enhances the maturity level of the market in AI solutions by fostering collaboration, addressing industry-specific challenges, tailoring solutions, and garnering support for implementation.

(1) Background: The reliability of port equipment is of significant interest to industry stakeholders due to the economic and logistical factors governing the operation of maritime container terminals. Failures of key equipment like quay cranes can halt operations or cause economically significant delays. (2) Methods: The impact assessment of these disruptive events is conducted through terminal activity modeling and discrete-event simulation of internal processes. The system’s steady-state or transient condition, induced by disruptive events, is statistically assessed within a set of scenarios proposed by the authors. (3) Results: The Heidelberg–Welch and Geweke tests enabled the evaluation of steady-state and transient conditions within the modeled system, which was affected by the reduced reliability of container-handling equipment. (4) Conclusions: The research findings confirmed the usefulness of modeling and simulation in assessing the impact of equipment reliability on maritime container terminal operations. If the magnitude of the disruptive event exceeds the terminal’s absorption capacity, the system may become blocked or remain in a transient state without the ability to recover. This underscores the necessity of analyzing the reliability of critical handling equipment and implementing corrective maintenance actions when required.

The use of technologies that automate handling goods and loading units in warehouses and depots is not new. Yet, the purchase process of these technologies issues troubles and the estimation of the economic advantages brought by one or another technology to the entire chain of operations in logistics are not always known. Faults or not documented decisions put pressure on managers and prices for services. They can cause a drop in the competitiveness of warehouse operators, particularly in uncertain conditions. Academia documented the cost of warehouse storage well. Yet, little research has looked into the economic justification of implementing automatic systems for loading or unloading activities and the impact on complementary operations. For this reason, a model is needed to calculate the cost of operations when different technical equipment is used. This research further investigates the cost categories that must be considered when purchasing automated loading/unloading technologies. The model includes the purchase and operational loading costs that new technologies generate and the cost of adjacent operations to loading activity. The case study uses forklifts as the reference scenario and provides an overview of the return on investment and a break-even period when other technologies are in use. The calculation model shows that increasing cargo volume leads to a better RoI. The same observation is also made regarding the rise in labour costs. For the latter, using human operators to handle pallets on a one-by-one basis generates an exponential increase in operational cost due to delays and faults. On the other side, the cost of implementing automated loading/unloading technologies and the consideration of technology risk determine the low economic advantages. An in-depth cost and benefit analysis shows in which situation a technology generates greater benefits. Further results of this paper show that better use of trucks' loading capacity can positively impact the financial performance of automated loading technologies, as a higher volume of cargo is moved (at once) without human intervention.

The seaport-hinterland access infrastructures become more saturated leading to extra unpredictable costs for logistics operators. To keep their services competitive, infrastructure managers (such as port authorities) seek new approaches in managing and delivering information to their users. Starting from existing technological advancements and exploring the declared opportunities enabled by (near) future ones, a range of solutions (e.g. real-time information platforms, dynamic information boards or digital on-request notification solutions) can be pursued. This research investigates how an advanced truck guidance system (TGS) leverages on technology and leads to more efficient resource (infrastructure, equipment and labour) usage. The current paper merges two perspectives. The first conducts interviews with representatives of different logistics stakeholders to highlight their data needs. The second perspective is given by a review of information communication technology (ICT) innovative trends. These two perspectives provide an up-to-date overview of both needs (demand) and opportunities (supply) that challenge logistics stakeholders. This study proposes a TGS architecture that merges the two perspectives and identifies a stepwise approach to implement it. Therefore, the roles, costs and benefits brought to the logistics stakeholders are highlighted for each step. The key findings of this study show that road transport operators would benefit from operational savings and increased performance, while the other supply chain stakeholders can benefit from setting up a more reliable planning, better managing their infrastructure and developing added-value services for clients. To enable these benefits, the port administration could take the facilitator role and cover the TGS's development costs.

Road transportation is a key mode of transport when it comes to ensuring the hinterland connection of most European ports. Constrained by low profit margins and having to be active in a highly competitive market, companies active in this sector seek multi-dimensional innovative solutions that lower their operational costs. These innovative initiatives also yield positive environmental effects. The latter however are poorly recognized. This paper investigates the characteristics of different types of chassis used to transport containers from and to the terminals in the port areas and looks into the details of operational planning practices. It analyses the cost-effectiveness of these innovative solutions highlighting both the costs and the environmental emissions they save. Transport data from a road hauler serving the hinterland connection of a port in Western Europe is used to build up a case study. Results show that by using special types of chassis, which enable the combination of transport tasks in round-trips, the operational costs are reduced by 25% to 35%, and equally the CO2 emissions are also decreased by 34% to 38%.

The poor innovative strength displayed by the transport sector in the broad sense often contrasts strongly with that evidenced in other sectors. At the same time, it can be observed that quite a lot of innovative concepts in transportation have been studied in detail. This paper assesses which chain impacts an innovation entails, what conditions will conduce actors to innovate, or prevent them from doing so, and finally also what governments can do to stimulate innovation. The present paper makes an application to innovation by seaport-related operators through a number of cases. For collecting the standardized information, use is made of existing documents as well as sector and project contacts on the cases at hand, on which a scientific review is performed. In order to draw meaningful conclusions from the set of cases, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) technique is used. The analysis shows that no unique recipe for innovation success exists, but that four sub-groups of cases can be discerned which have common characteristics that consistently lead to innovation success, dealing respectively with the terminal operators, the shipping lines, infrastructure and the innovation champion. The findings are particularly relevant for those in business and in policy-making who are involved in implementing or promoting innovation.

Ports are confronted with different pollution sources such as waste, dust, noise, air pollutants and oil spills. Although the awareness among port users with regard to environmental protection has increased, environmental issues remain a public concern. The response to oil spills is the focus of this paper because it raises public and industry concerns about the effectiveness of response systems. The absence of a maritime economics perspective leaves a number of spill response aspects unaddressed. This paper identifies the economic implications of spill response regimes. The research focuses on the spill regime in eight ports in six countries: Antwerp, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Southampton, Vancouver (Canada), Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle. The research involves extensive library research and meetings with different stakeholders involved in oil spills response in/and around the ports. The examination of oil spill response practices in eight ports reveals substantial differences. These differences highlight the diverse governance structures, geographic situations and traffic composition of the ports. Firstly, it is noted that the functions of port authorities (PAs) in respect of spill response vary greatly. Secondly, there is an evident dichotomy between a port viewed as a corporate entity managing only designated port resources or as a body of water and terminals used by ships. And thirdly, traffic composition (together with the local geography) can be expected to affect spill response management. A high incidence of oil and chemical traffic can be expected to be linked with elevated protection against and, perhaps, experience with oil and chemical spills. The economics of spill response regimes is driven by the principle of “the polluter pays”. However, the application of this principle to the costs of spill response plays out differently under different port governance regimes and under different strategies for allocating cost responsibility. The paper identifies these differences and makes recommendations for further research so that maritime economists can give greater attention

The poor innovative strength displayed by the transport sector in the broadsense often contrasts strongly with that evidenced in other sectors. At the same time, it canbe observed that quite a lot of innovative concepts in transportation have been studied indetail. This paper assesses which chain impacts an innovation entails, what conditions willconduce actors to innovate, or prevent them from doing so, and finally also what governmentscan do to stimulate innovation. The present paper makes an application to innovationby seaport-related operators through a number of cases. For collecting the standardizedinformation, use is made of existing documents as well as sector and project contactson the cases at hand, on which a scientific review is performed. In order to draw meaningfulconclusions from the set of cases, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)technique is used. The analysis shows that no unique recipe for innovation success exists,but that four sub-groups of cases can be discerned which have common characteristics thatconsistently lead to innovation success, dealing respectively with the terminal operators,the shipping lines, infrastructure and the innovation champion. The findings are particularlyrelevant for those in business and in policy-making who are involved in implementingor promoting innovation.