Abstract
The Port of Dover is Europe’s busiest ferry port, handling £119 billion or 17% of the UK’s annual trade in goods. The Port is constrained geographically to a small area and faces multiple challenges, both short- and long-term, with managing the flow of five million vehicles per year to/from mainland Europe. This article describes some of the work that the Port is doing to minimize the impact of port road traffic on the local community and environment using discrete-event simulation modeling. Modeling is particularly valuable in identifying where future bottlenecks are likely to form within the Port due to projected growth in freight traffic and comparing the effectiveness of different interventions to cope with growth. One of our key findings is that space which can be used flexibly is far more valuable than dedicated space. This is supported by the much greater reduction in traffic congestion that is expected to be achieved given a 10% increase in freight traffic by reallocating space at the front of the system to temporarily hold vehicles waiting to pass through border control and check-in compared to extending the amount of space for ferry embarkation at the rear of the system. The importance of flexible space has implications for port design that can be applied more broadly. Modeling is also useful in identifying critical thresholds for vehicle processing times that would cause the system to become overwhelmed. Increasing the check-in time by just three to five minutes, for example, would completely exceed the Port’s capacity and produce indefinite queueing. This finding has important implications for Brexit planning. From a wider context, the research presented here nicely illustrates how simulation can be used to instill more evidence-based thinking into port masterplanning and support “green port” and other corporate sustainability initiatives.
Highlights
Port masterplanning is the process by which ports determine and communicate their medium- to long-term strategic plans
Integration of “green port” policies aimed at reducing emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gasses from logistic operations, in particular, is increasingly being seen as a core element of port masterplanning [2,3,4]
This study describes how simulation modeling and analysis are being used at the Port of Dover to address economic, social, and environmental trade-offs involved with port masterplanning
Summary
Port masterplanning is the process by which ports determine and communicate their medium- to long-term strategic plans. Of the 219 articles evaluated by Dragovicet al., the majority focus on container stack loading and unloading, which is discussed in more depth in a study by Lehnfeld and Knust [15] Another notable finding is the sheer variety of simulation techniques and software used, with discrete-event simulation being the most common type of framework (e.g., [16]) but with agent-based models frequently employed (e.g., [17]). The Port operates in a highly dynamic environment This includes both short-term operational stressors (e.g., delayed ferry movements caused by storms, variable staffing levels, labor strikes, and heightened security in response to acts or threats of terrorism) and long-term strategic stressors (e.g., projected growth of freight traffic and the possibility of additional border and customs checks on vehicles following Brexit).
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