Simulation Analysis of Seaport Rijeka Operations with Established Dry Port

Abstract

Seaport Rijeka is the largest seaport in Croatia. It specializes in transport of cargo, with the primary activities of loading, unloading, storage and transport of general cargo, timber, bulk cargo, livestock, containers, and other cargo at five specialized terminals. It is focused on increasing the quality of services and the competitiveness of the transport routes in Croatia. Due to its favourable position on the TEN-T network, Seaport Rijeka provides the shortest maritime connection between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as well as the overseas countries. In the past 20 years Seaport Rijeka keeps record of continuous growth in container traffic. Due to increasing demand in container traffic, it seeks for the solutions to expand. One of the possible solutions that would satisfy the increasing demand in container traffic is establishing a dry port. Dry port is an inland intermodal terminal which has direct connection to the seaport by road or rail and its main purpose is to provide logistic activities and transport to inland destinations. Dry ports have many advantages, faster transport of cargo from seaports, use of more efficient modes of transport, providing facilities for the storage and consolidation of goods, the maintenance of road or rail freight carriers, customs services, etc. In the case of container transport, dry ports can be used to outsource the logistic activities of transport process, away from congested area of seaports. Due to the fact that Seaport Rijeka is reaching the limits of its capacity, one of possible solutions of its expansion is establishing a dry port. The focus of this paper is to prove that establishing a dry port would speed up the transport process of containers between Seaport Rijeka and its destinations. Due to this hypothesis, four simulations were made. First simulation shows the transport process in the existing set-up of the Seaport Rijeka. Second, third and fourth simulation shows the transport process in the future possible set-up of the Seaport Rijeka with established dry port in Miklavlje, Zagreb or Vinkovci.