SIS 51 European perspectives on risk, resilience, and sustainability of transport infrastructure

Session Organiser: Dimitrios Liparas, Netcompany-Intrasoft, Belgium

The European Green Deal provides an initial roadmap of necessary key policies and measures, aiming towards zero net GHG emissions by 2050. The development of European green ports & multimodal hubs of the future is linked to resilient infrastructure against environmental stressors, smarter approaches, more efficient, effective, innovative technical solutions, sustainable management of goods and freight flows, and seamless integration of the port community and inland multimodal terminals & hubs, balancing environmental effects and economic requirements. Freight transport and logistics are vital to the EU Single Market. Transport modes still adhere to silo mentality, while major challenges include saturated infrastructure, carbon emission goals, and energy constraints. However, a firm step towards sustainability is not possible without a concrete transition to increased automation, digitalization, interoperability of processes, and equipment, built on infrastructure that can benefit from quantitative operational capability, determination and assessment of the climatic risk and associated expected damages, as well as resilience assessment through state-of-art digital twins and end-to-end simulation environments. By fundamentally advancing the use of resilient infrastructure, alternative energy, organisation and management of ports, inland multimodal hubs and terminals, and related freight transport, digitalisation will propel ports & inland multimodal hubs towards a sustainable and efficient sector.