The port as a system of systems: A System Dynamics simulation approach

The particular complexity that characterizes a maritime port makes it belonging to the category of a system of systems. In fact, the functioning of a port is made possible thanks to the interaction of numerous subsystems, which in turn depend on other systems. The goal of the present paper is to provide a description of a port as a system of systems and to model and simulate the port rail process in some Italian container terminals, by using the software Powersim Studio, implementing the System Dynamics methodology. “What-If” scenarios have been tested with the objective of underlining the system bottlenecks and proposing improvement suggestions.