Dry port as a lean and green strategy in a container terminal HUB: a mathematical programming model

Maritime freight transport represents an effective solution, allowing to ensure a low-impact service both under an economic and a sustainable perspective. As a consequence, in the last ten years, an increasing trend of goods transported by sea has been observed. In order to improve the terminal containers’ performance, recently published scientific studies shown the applicability of the ‘lean logistic’ concept as a strategic key for ensuring a continuous improvement of the logistic chain for inter-/intra terminal containers’ activities. According to this approach, the adoption of a dry port can positively affect terminal containers’ performance, but this requires resources and investments due to inter-terminal activities (e.g. transport of the container from port to dry port and vice versa). The purpose of the study is to develop a mathematical programming optimization model to support the decision making in identifying the best containers’ handling strategy for intermodal facilities, according to lean and green perspectives. Numerical experiments shown the effectiveness of the model in identifying efficient material handling strategies under lean and green perspective.