Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DocksTheFuture (Developing the methodology for a coordinated approach to the clustering, monitoring and evaluation of results of actions under the Ports of the Future topic)

Teaser

According to the European Commission (2019), Europe\'s ports are vital gateways, linking its transport corridors to the rest of the world. 74% of goods entering or leaving Europe go by sea, and Europe boasts some of the finest port facilities in the world. Ports play an equally...

Summary

According to the European Commission (2019), Europe\'s ports are vital gateways, linking its transport corridors to the rest of the world. 74% of goods entering or leaving Europe go by sea, and Europe boasts some of the finest port facilities in the world. Ports play an equally important role to support the exchange of goods within the internal market and in linking peripheral and island areas with the mainland of Europe. Ports are not only great for moving goods around, they also constitute energy hubs for conventional and renewable energies. 400 million passengers embark and disembark in European ports every year. Ports generate employment; 1.5 million workers are employed in European ports, with the same amount again employed indirectly across the 22 EU maritime Member States.

However, European port cities are also places of conflict between economy and ecology. Ports city relationships have weakened recently as the port and city disintegrated with less direct economic benefits for cities while lots of environmental impacts due to air, water and land pollution still remain for local communities. So, the common challenge of many port cities is labelled the local-global mismatch. As an example, more than 90% of the indirect economic impacts of the ports of Le Havre are taking place in other regions than the port region itself (Karimpour et al., 2019).

The DocksTheFuture (DTF) Project aims at defining the vision for the ports of the future in 2030, covering all specific issues that could define this concept including among others, dredging, emission reduction, energy transition, electrification, smart grids, port-city interface and the use of renewable energy management.

The project is a Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action, and consist by definition of actions consisting primarily of accompanying measures such as standardization, dissemination, awareness-raising and communication, networking, coordination or support services, policy dialogues and mutual learning exercises and studies, including design studies for new infrastructure and may also include complementary activities of strategic planning, networking and coordination between programs in different countries.

Work performed

During the reference period, in order to arrive in a definition of the port of the future, the Consortium operated within the project’s framework as defined in the grant agreement.
The work started by making an initial inventory of inputs to be assessed. This activity was carried out by Port Expertise with the support of all the partners. Inputs are work products such as projects, article collections, legal instruments, scientific papers, strategic port plans among others. In total approximately 350 inputs were proposed to be assessed by the DTF partners and their subcontractors. These inputs were then grouped together in “assessment rounds” and assigned to a DtF partner. The first assessment rounds contained the priority inputs, in other words, those that are expected to contain the most relevant information for DTF.
To support the desktop study, a DocksTheFuture database has been developed.
During the reference period, the following other main activities were carried out:
•Stakeholders consultation: The main goal of this task was to get feedback and opinions about the Port of the Future from the main port stakeholders that have an impact on or are impacted by the DTF project. An online survey was launched the 14th September 2018 and remained open until the 1st of October
•Maritime traffic analysis and forecast review
•Analysis of macro trends and perspectives in the maritime sector: a survey on the most essential macro-trends on a global level, which are assumed to have likely impacts on ports of the future. It comprises an analysis economic trends, environmental trends (incl. energy), society trends, technological trends and governmental/political trends. For each of the thematic areas the most essential trends have been identified and described in order to gain a survey about what is expected to happen until 2030.

• Selection and Clustering of Projects and Initiatives of interest
•Evaluation: analysis of the clustered Projects and activities of interest
•Plan for the Exploitation of the action Results (PER)
•Continous Project Management and dissemination activities

Final results

Maritime ports increasingly shift to a commercialised entity under the form of a public limited company, or an independent public body. The consequence is that the more ‘classical’ business topics are now better attended. With increasing public and political pressure maritime ports have to justify their use of the public funds allocated to them. This is reflected through various aspects in reporting obligations, permission procedures (such as CBA for infrastructure), revenue generating aspect of investments, and the aforementioned reporting on environmental impact.
Business models of ports also adapt to the changing market conditions, and gradually shift from the classic landlord model to the more entrepreneurial business model, in which the port authority undertakes an active role in attracting companies to fit in the existing clusters policy, invest in fore-and hinterland economic actors (other ports, hinterland terminals, railway companies), and recently also in digitization (appointment of Chief Digital Innovation Officer Officers, IT companies, applications, …).
A persistant contradiction that remains stubbornly alive is the issue of project financing. While we all may agree with building the Port of the Future, someone has to pick up the bill attached to it. All stakeholders confirm the need for more funds. And yet, never in history this much money was available for projects (including transport). Yet, especially the transport sector compared to other sectors is not (yet ?) making use of these financial resources. Of course, when combining both public and private financing, the project has to meet certain financial and economic (environmental, …) goals, which may pose a problem to some initiatives. Should these remain getting financed if they fail for example the test of a Cost Benefit Analysis. ?
During the reference period, the project Cosnortium has made great progress towards the main objectives and expected results of the project.
An huge work and analysis related to the concept of the port of the furture was carried out.

After the first reporting period, where the project consortium laid the gorundwork for the port of the future definition, the project consortium aims at defining a Decion Support System that will allow the user to interrogate a software in order to understand potential initiatives aiming at achieving specific users’ goals. Together with the alternative initiatives, specific KPIs will be released to the user, in order to inform them about potential pros and cons of certain their actions in order to advance on their PortoftheFuture roadmap.The DSS will be developed as final step of the desk research elaborated during the project.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.docksthefuture.eu/.