Models For Supporting Sea Transportation Evolution: A Case Study For An International Harbor System

摘要

The paper presents an analysis of the current evolutionary trends in maritime transportation with special focus to the Italian and Mediterranean Sea in general and to Liguria Ports in particular. From this analysis emerges the impellent necessity for the Mediterranean Ports to meet North European standards and to reach higher levels of efficiency, such point is turning year by year to be even more harder due to the increasing level of complexity faced by each harbor. Emerging countries, rapid changes in Supply Chains and increasing volumes are pushing the entire maritime sector to a critical evolutionary phase. This increasing level of complexity deserves the most advances methodologies and the best-proven practices to be proper managed. Among the various available methodologies Modeling & Simulation (M&S) has proven to be very effective for designing complex Decision Support Systems (DSS) able to answer to the maritime sector's expectations. The Authors presents taxonomy of various models ranging from strategic ones based on System Dynamics up to operative ones based on Discrete Events Simulation. Moreover the paper provides examples of mathematical models able to be plugged into such DSS in order to solve specific optimization problems. Other typical uses of M&S are presented and discussed (i.e. fleet planning, on board maintenance optimization and personnel training) providing good examples of real life application of the proposed methodologies.