Considered an essential link in the logistics chain, the port has undergone various restructurings and evolutions throughout generations. Many economic, socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors require ports to move towards digitalization and sustainability. To this end, ports are required to change into smart ports that align with new Industry 4.0 practices to ensure their sustainability. This study proposes a systematic review of the literature on the emerging smart port concept to continue the work started by Buiza et al. and Molavi et al., aiming at a broader and comprehensive understanding of the smart port concept by business domain to fill this gap in literature. This research proposes 11 smart port characteristics grouped into 7 business domains. A definition is also proposed to update the concept.

Forest industry plays an important role in global economy and has significant influences in our lives and the environment that we live in. With the rapid advancement of digital technologies and industrial transformations towards Industry 4.0, similar trend has been found in the forest industry and especially on its forest procurement side. Forestry 4.0 has been proposed as research initiatives in recent years. However, publications have largely focused on the digital technologies. This article is aimed at presenting a framework to provide a holistic view of Forestry 4.0 from a forest supply chain perspective. The framework consists of four major components including the digital technologies pertinent to each of the supply chain business activities; the network infrastructure; the next generation system intelligence; and the collaborative forest supply chain digital ecosystem. These components are essential for the forest industry transformation to become truly interconnected among its supply chain actors. Some economic, environmental, and social expected benefits of Forestry 4.0 are discussed as well as potential impacts and challenges.

The increasing demand for freight services and the use of larger vessels to meet this demand has led to challenges related to storage space and logistics activities, highlighting the need for improvements in port infrastructure for better logistics management. At a crucial phase in its growth, the Port of Trois-Rivières in Canada is planning a major expansion, including the construction of a new terminal to enhance its hosting capacities and freight services. This expansion faces potential access congestion problems during the planned construction, exacerbated by the port’s urban setting. In response to the needs identified by the port authorities for this event, the study’s objective is to assess the implications of increased construction and freight truck flows on access gate fluidity and the impact of additional access infrastructure investment to mitigate potential congestion. These evaluations aim to define effective access management strategies throughout the construction period of the new terminal. To address these complexities, our approach is based on scenario analysis in variants co-constructed with the partner. These scenarios are evaluated using simulation models, configured according to parameters calibrated with a granularity that allows congestion detection. The results enabled an evaluation of the capability of existing and potential gates to manage access. Subsequently, recommendations were shaped in accordance with the expected objectives to manage access traffic effectively. These recommendations concern the optimization of construction activity planning, the layout and planning of access, and the importance of enhanced collaboration between municipal and port authorities for more controlled road traffic management. Recognizing the importance of synchromodality, road network centrality management, and the outsourcing of capacity through inter-port cooperation and with dry ports to manage congestion, these tools will be discussed in this work. The study proposes an approach that reconciles scientific rigor with the implementation constraints of the proposed solutions, allowing this study wider applicability in various port contexts facing challenges in this field of study.

Seaports are perceived as multimodal hubs of the logistics supply chain where various transport modes intersect to exchange goods shipped by vessels. Increasing trade and capacity constraints are making this area a major contributor to GHG emissions. National and regional decision-makers perceive port sustainability as a concern while planning GHG mitigation projects. However, to plan and conduct successful GHG management programs, it is critical to first develop an appropriate assessment approach that fits well with the operating and geographical context of the given port. For heavy-duty trucking activities taking place within such ports, several models and methodologies for assessing GHG emissions are available, but their generalization is challenging for many reasons, notably because of the specific features of traffic within the port. Therefore, this paper presents an assessment model for heavy-duty trucking emissions within a non-containerized port based on an in-depth study of the traffic per port zone and on parameters drawn from several real data sources. The GHG model based on road traffic profiles by zone is implemented in a simulation model for emission evaluation and prediction. The output shows the pattern of GHG emissions by zone and provides an outlook on how decision-makers could achieve a GHG reduction plan.

This study analyzes the sustainability of the circular economy model on winter road maintenance. Winter road maintenance involves plowing snow, spreading abrasives, and then sweeping and collecting the remaining abrasives at the end of the winter season. Traditionally, in the linear approach, the collected sweepings are landfilled, which incurs landfilling costs for resources that could be reused. To address this issue, we consider the option of recycling sweepings for use in the following winter seasons. We develop a discrete-event simulation model that estimates the economic and environmental benefits of this option. Using data from a case study of a highway in Quebec, Canada, the model shows that introducing circular economy practices in winter road maintenance results in less material going to landfills, lower costs, less use of aggregates from virgin materials, and lower CO₂ emissions compared to the linear approach. A subsequent sensitivity analysis reveals that the quantity of sweepings collected greatly influences the outcomes.