Logistics is acquiring an ever-increasing importance (being currently responsible for 13.8% of the global GDP), mostly because of the growth in global commercial interchanges and their obvious effects on nodal points and infrastructure capacity. Several programmes started by the European Commission within sectors such as liberalization, harmonization, infrastructure and standardization, tend to boost the planning, management and control of transport chains and push towards a deeper complementarity among transport modes and the last-mile logistics.
The pervasive use of ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) e ICT (Information and Communication Technology) technologies is necessary in order to guarantee efficient logistics solutions.
In particular, significant developments are expected with reference to freight survey and tracking systems in the different transport modes, the application of navigation satellite systems (such as GALILEO), long range identification and tracking systems (LRTI), information systems on the main traffic flows and for automatic identification (Automatic Identification System, AIS).
The European Commission adopted the new White Book on Transport on March 28th 2011 [2], defining the main goals for a competitive and efficient transport system, with a particular attention to:
- urban logistics systems characterized by zero CO2 emissions, to be reached by 2030 [COM, 2011];
- interconnection among rail, airport, maritime and waterway transport networks;
- application of the existing traffic management systems to land and sea transport;
- definition, by 2020, of a framework for a common European system in the fields of information, management and payment of multi-modal transport systems.
Cagliari Port 2020, in order to achieve the main goals described above, aims to build support tools for front-end and medium range urban planning. The development of a logistic model for the port/metropolitan area, capable to monitor the flows between the two systems and to model the evolution and the sizing depending on input parameters, is expected.
The goal is to set up a decision support system capable of representing the critical issues related to the handling of goods and people, depending on different flow levels, in order to allow an organic planning of the neighbour areas and a correct dimensioning of road infrastructures.