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Innovative and Sustainable Management of International Shipment Flow: Opportunities and Challenges

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 13810

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Ján Ližbetin

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Guest Editor

Department of Transport and Logistics, Institute of Technology and Business in České Budějovice, 370 01 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Interests: transport; intermodal transport; logistics; warehousing; transport means; handling equipment; environmental research
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Ondrej Stopka

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Guest Editor

Department of Transport and Logistics, Institute of Technology and Business in České Budějovice, Avenue Okružní 517/10, 370 01 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Interests: transport operation; city logistics; operations research; handling equipment optimization; telematics and smart technologies in transport; intelligent transport infrastructures; autonomous vehicles; road transport safety; emission research
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In general, the current issue is to address the sustainability of technological developments in terms of assuring the quality of life for future generations. Development trends and innovations in international freight forwarding will put toward organizing and managing international shipment flows more effectively, and thereby better utilizing the capacity of seaports, intermodal transport terminals, as well as the capacities of transport means and transport infrastructure.

Transport operation represents a significant part of the overall costs of enterprises and is an integral part of the world economy. By streamlining transport-logistics activities in each freight transport mode, it is possible to optimally determine production capacities of enterprises as well as better satisfaction of customer requirements. Shipment flow innovations may also help to conserve a greater amount of natural resources and contribute to solving environmental issues.

Every year, the demand for freight transport increases considerably. One of the solutions for how to manage processes related to international shipment flows more efficiently and sustainably is to use innovative transport-logistics systems and technologies.

Implementing such technologies in terms of freight transport and generally in a shipment flow is a relatively new concept that has been used in attempts to moderate all aspects of functionality. One of the crucial objectives for a future sustainable development of international transport flows is represented by creating unified smart transport networks.

Development trends associated with innovative systems and technologies do not eliminate transport and its processes from the issue of sustainability. The question here is whether the implementation of innovative systems and technologies may also guarantee the sustainability of transport-logistics processes for the future.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

Development trends in the management of international shipment flows;
Innovative and sustainable solutions in international freight forwarding;
Application of operations research methods in terms of management of international shipment flow processes;
Sustainable growth of seaports taking into account the long-term growth of shipment flows;
Application of innovative optimization methods in terms of transport-logistics processes (ant colony algorithm, evolutionary optimization, genetic algorithms, etc.);
Application of innovative information systems and technologies in terms of transport-logistics processes;
Application of innovative technologies in terms of managing shipment carriages in international road, railway, maritime, inland waterway, and intermodal transport;
Innovative measures in transport policy;
Measures to reduce risks in international shipment carriages, risk assessment and its mitigation;
Measures to increase the transport-logistics service quality;
Innovative transport-logistics infrastructure maintenance, management and its optimization;
Implementation of innovative intermodal transport terminal management and fleets management.

Dr. Ján Ližbetin
Dr. Ondrej Stopka
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

management
shipment flows
sustainable solutions
freight forwarding
operations research
seaports
optimization methods
transport-logistics
transport
transport policy
infrastructure
transport terminal

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 9799 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Implementation of Barcode Technology to Logistics Processes of a Company

by Jaroslava Kubáňová, Iveta Kubasáková, Kristián Čulík and Lukáš Štítik

Sustainability 2022, 14(2), 790; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14020790 - 11 Jan 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4960

Abstract

The article focuses on expanding the use of barcodes in selected logistics activities in a company. Our study discusses the application of barcode technology to selected logistics activities in the company in order to address the error rate in these activities and to control ownership of this technology in other logistics activities within the company during the COVID-19. The priority of the testing phase was to point out the elimination of errors in the original versus the newly proposed solution for the company on 10 products. In the test phase, the 10 products with the highest turnover in the company were used to point out the elimination of errors in various logistics activities, especially the time saved compared to the work of human personnel in the company. The company has this technology at its disposal, in the parent company as well as in the subsidiary. It was only a matter of expanding the use and applicability of this technology as well as other possibilities for research hypotheses, which we outlined at the end of the article. In this article, we focus on RFID and barcode technologies, since the company initially considered using RFID technology, however, chose the use of barcodes because it was an already known work technology. The current situation affected with COVID-19 disease requires many advantages and disadvantages of both technologies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Management of International Shipment Flow: Opportunities and Challenges)

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20 pages, 3595 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on the Relationship between Transport Infrastructure and Performance in Rail and Road Freight Transport—A Case Study of Japan and Selected European Countries

by Jozef Gnap, Šimon Senko, Mariusz Kostrzewski, Mária Brídziková, Renáta Cződörová and Zdeněk Říha

Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6654; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13126654 - 11 Jun 2021

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 3336

Abstract

Transport is key for our economy and society, as good transport infrastructure helps to improve the mobility of citizens and the flow of goods. The European Union intends to maintain support for the development of transport infrastructure in the individual Member States. The aim of this study was to use correlation analysis to compare selected parameters of the road and railway infrastructure of Japan and selected EU countries. The significance of the correlations between various parameters characterizing the transport infrastructure of Japan and selected EU countries was tested. Correlation analysis is not typical in transport-oriented research. Several studies have employed such analysis; however, the majority of them have focused on passenger transport and correlations concerning the behavior of the customers of this mode of transport. The aim of this study was to answer the following research question: is there any correlation between transport performance and infrastructure or investment in infrastructure in relation to the mentioned countries, and, if so, is there a connection between the selected countries where this correlation occurs? Greater investment can also be expected in the construction of high-speed railways, given the decisions of some EU Member States not to resume national air transport where there is good railway infrastructure, even after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Management of International Shipment Flow: Opportunities and Challenges)

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16 pages, 1543 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Simulation of Railway Lines with a Simplified Interlocking System

by Jaromír Široký, Petr Nachtigall, Erik Tischer and Jozef Gašparík

Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1394; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13031394 - 29 Jan 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2616

Abstract

This paper deals with railway lines with low traffic intensity where trains are operated under simplified conditions. Those conditions are stated in a regulation, and there is no interlocking system on the line. The whole railway operation is organized according to a regulation in cooperation with the train crew. For the calculation of the throughput, we can use analytic or simulation methods. On those lines there is a big problem with the common working methods because of special circumstances on each line, which are influencing the technological times and reliability of the calculation. The simplified conditions are the transforming of regular interlocking systems on the administrative level. Therefore, it is very complicated to use a common simulation model. Most of the simulation tools are not able to work with it. The motivation of this paper is to prove that modern simulation tools are usable for that specific condition as well. The simulation model was built in SW OpenTrack which is able to modify its functions to figure out each technological action to ensure the correct function of the model. This functionality is described in the paper in general and implemented on a case study. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Management of International Shipment Flow: Opportunities and Challenges)

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23 pages, 3025 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of an Environmental Way of Customer’s Thinking on a Range of Choice from Transport Routes in Maritime Transport

by Andrej David, Peter Mako, Jan Lizbetin and Patrik Bohm

Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1230; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13031230 - 25 Jan 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1761

Abstract

The paper deals with the impact that an environmental way of thinking has on shipping and transport company customers regarding their preferences in choosing a transport route. Nowadays, maritime transport plays a very important role mainly in transoceanic container transport. It also deals with the statistics focused on container shipping, especially between North America and Europe. These statistics contribute to a general description of the development of container shipping on the route that is applicated in this case study. The significant impact of this kind of transport also reflects the estimation of the future development of container transport on the selected transport route. In this view, the least square method is used in this paper. This method can present the trend of development according to statistics. Thanks to these materials, this paper estimates a slight increase of the number of containers transported between North America and Europe in the near future. This increase will have a certain effect on the environment. Thus, as part of their business policy of sustainability and environment protection, customers will prefer a mode of transport and transport routes featuring a smaller effect on the environment in the future. The relevance of such a change in preferences in planning transport routes for the customer is reflected in the case study presented in this paper. So, one part of this paper is also dedicated to information about the impact of maritime transport on the environment. This part also explains the impact according to different studies that have been published in the last few years. The main contribution of this paper is also to point out the importance of this factor for the preferences of customers via the multi-criteria decision method. Using a multi-criteria decision method, it outlines how the factor of the impact on the environment can significantly change the offer made by a transport or shipping company, and thus how it represents a key element of whether the customer would prefer the given offer or focus on a competitor’s offer. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Management of International Shipment Flow: Opportunities and Challenges)

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