Dry ports and related environmental benefits: a case study in Italy

The maritime containerised transport continues to grow; thus, an efficient seaport inland access becomes crucial for the performance of the entire intermodal transport chain. Dry ports are inland intermodal terminals directly connected to seaports via rail, which operate as trans-shipment hubs and provide services, such as: storage, consolidation, depot and custom clearance. In addition to offering benefits in terms of operational costs and efficiency, dry port concept implementation can produce positive effects also under an environmental point of view, promoting the modal shift from road to rail. This paper presents a simulation-based method to estimate the environmental benefits, in terms of emissions reduction, of a dry port implementation. This method is organized into three parts: (i) traffic demand analysis, (ii) traffic supply model, (iii) assignment and emission model. The methodology is applied to a real-world case study in Northern Italy, where the current scenario is compared to a future scenario in which a new railway connection is established between a seaport (Port of Venice) and an existing intermodal freight hub (Interporto of Padua). According to our findings, in the future scenario emissions of the main pollutants are reduced by 17%. In terms of CO2 this corresponds to about 8000 tons per year.