Seaports participate in hinterland economic development through partnerships with dry ports, and the combined seaport-dry port network serves as the backbone of regional logistics. This paper constructs a location-allocation model for the regional seaport-dry port network optimization problem and develops a greedy algorithm and a genetic algorithm to obtain its solution. This model is applicable to situations under which the geographic distribution of demand is known. A case study involving configuration of dry ports near the west bank of the Taiwan Strait is conducted, and the model is successfully applied.

The rapid development of the intermodal system has led to the intensification of the hinterland competition within the port group, and the spatial pattern of the hinterland has become discontinuous. Based on geographic information system technology, a spatial interaction model, in which the intermodal cost distance is computed by integrating the raster analysis method and network method, is developed to facilitate the examination of the spatial evolution process of the port group intermodal hinterland. Considering the example of the Gulf of Guinea port group in West Africa, the spatial evolution process of its five ports is simulated in three scenarios. The results indicate that intermodal transport drives the hinterland’s discontinuous development, and the direction and layout of the intermodal corridors significantly impact the hinterland competition of the port group. In most cases, the intermodal corridors can help realize connected ports to enhance the hinterland’s competitive advantage within the port group. However, adjacent ports may also benefit from this aspect under certain conditions, which implies the importance of port cooperation in planning collection and distribution corridors. The model and findings can theoretically support the decision-making of port investors and operators.

Knowing the vertical distribution of ambient particulate matter (PM) will help port authorities choose the optimal dust-suppression measures to reduce PM concentrations. In this study, we used an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to assess the vertical distribution (0–120 m altitude) of PM in a dry bulk port along the Yangtze River, China. Total suspended particulates (TSP), PM10, and PM2.5 concentrations at different altitudes were measured at seven sites representing different cargo-handling sites and a background site. Variations in results across sites make it not suitable to characterize the vertical distribution of PM concentration at this port using simple representative distributions. Bulk cargo particle size, fog cannon use, and porous fence all affected the vertical distribution of TSP concentrations but had only minor impacts on PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations. Optimizing porous fence layout according to weather conditions and cargo demand at port have the most potential for mitigating PM pollution related to port operation. As ground-based stations cannot fully measure vertical PM distributions, our methods and results represent an advance in assessing the impact of port activities on air quality and can be used to determine optimal dust-suppression measures for dry bulk ports.

Based on multi-agent simulation method in complex system theory, it is proposed in this paper the study route, basic framework and research approach of layered optimization for port cluster, to explore the structure of intelligent agents and its competitive and cooperative relationships. Global optimized intelligent agents are set up to optimize the general layout of port cluster and co-optimize the intelligent agents. Besides, the scale effect factor of port, based on the scale effect is introduced in this paper to build the sharing model of port-hinterland cargo freight volume. The factor is applied in switching rules of port intelligent agents. The design takes the high-efficient algorithm which is based on multi-agent Genetic Algorithm. The feasibility and efficiency of the model has been demonstrated through empirical analysis. The theory, method and results of this research could provide theoretical basis and methodological guidance for optimization of port cluster system.