The Role of Simulation in the Ports and Maritime Industry: Practical Experiences and Outlook for the New Generation of Ports 4.0

Abstract

Simulation tools has been used in ports, terminals and maritime industry since the mid-twentieth century. Nowadays, they are an indispensable tool in the stages of planning and design of terminals as well as in their daily management. However, the new technological revolution known as the Internet of Things (IoT) in which digital and physical worlds converge has brought a new generation of smart ports or Ports 4.0. This process has generated new challenges and opportunities for port managers, port users, port service providers and other port stakeholders. Simulation and systems interconnectivity should play a relevant role in this new era. A new environment is created with ports and terminals connected at global scale with the entire supply chain. Multiple devices, systems and services covering a wide variety of protocols, domains and applications are connected and all agents need to cooperate. Classical Simulation and Modelling tools and Terminal Operating Systems need to join this wave and evolved accordingly. In the first section of the paper, authors discussed about the different stages of Port Connectivity and Digitalization and how port function has changed in parallel. In the second section, it is described how Simulation and Modelling has evolved in port environments. In the third section, it is described the outlook of simulation this new port ecosystem, including new paradigms, new challenges and relevant aspects as distributed simulation (systems integration), cybersecurity and the use of cloud computing. Finally, authors drawn some conclusions of their work.