The development of a method to assess the future-proofness of Dutch inland ports

Abstract

The inland ports play an important role in the Dutch transport system, but it will undergo changes as a result of the societal changes in demand for services and goods and the changes in hydraulic conditions. The inland port has to adapt to these developments in order to reduce the threats and to increase the opportunities, but this requires adaptations to the current infrastructure or services. It is preferred to know the opportunities and threats beforehand, so that the inland port can already adapt to these projected changes ahead of time. This research focussed on the development of a method to assess the future-proofness of a Dutch inland port in the period up to 2050, result in the following main research question: What method can be provided to assess the future-proofness of an inland port in The Netherlands until 2050 with regard to the current port activities? The first step of this research was focussed on defining future-proofness of an inland port. An investigation into literature on the definition of future-proofness resulted in the following definition of the future-proof inland port: A future-proof inland port remains useful and successful in the transfer of goods, the storage of goods and facilitating industrial processes for the production of cargo in the future and is flexible enough in port services and infrastructure to deal with potential changes. Subsequently, the activities of various inland port were analysed, resulting in thirteen main port activities in the inland port. In combination with the identified port indicators, the port characteristics of each inland port can be determined. In the final step before the set-up of the method, more insights is obtained about the uncertainties in long-term developments and the related methods to deal with these uncertainties. In the end, it was found out that trend-based narratives can be used for this assessment, because this new method reflects the threats and opportunities for different port activities for specific inland ports. The obtained knowledge about future-proofness, the port activities and the uncertainties in long-term developments were used to set-up of a method to assess the future-proofness of the inland port, which exists of four different parts:•Part 1: Determination of the current inland port’s strengths & weaknesses (port characteristics)•Part 2: Determination of the port specific opportunities and threats (impacts)•Part 3: Determination of the flexibility of the specific inland port•Part 4: Assessment of the future-proofness of the specific inland port The applicability of this method was demonstrated through three case studies, in which the future-proofness of three existing inland ports is assessed. These case studies were the inland ports of Bergen op Zoom, Oosterhout and Wageningen. For these three case studies, the inland port of Wageningen seems very future-proof. It scores good on the current port characteristics, the impacts and the flexibility. The other two inland ports are still considered to be future-proof, although they might face some (minor) challenges in order to become future-proof. Overall, it is concluded that the generated method can be used to assess the future-proofness of the inland ports. It presents a first insight in the degree of future-proofness of the inland ports and can be used as a starting point to improve the performance of the inland port in the future and thereby becoming future-proof.