System Dynamics Model For The Simulation Of A Non Multi Echelon Supply Chain: Analysis and Optimization Utilizing The Berkeley Madonna Software

— In today’s global market, managing the entire supply chain becomes a key factor for a successful business. World-class organizations realize that non-integrated manufacturing and distribution processes together with poor relationships with suppliers and customers are a huge limit for their success. One of the most important aspect affecting the performance of a supply chain is the management of inventories. Inventory management in the supply chain system is quite a complex issue because demand at the upstream stage is dependent on orders from the downstream stage, and the final downstream stage receives orders from the market in uncertain conditions. Uncertainty is one of the major obstacle which limits the creation of an effective supply chain inventory model, able to optimize times and costs. Being the management of a complex inventory model too difficult to analyze with traditional analytical mathematical methods, computer simulation is widely used to study this kind of problems. This paper has the goal of modeling a single echelon supply chain and optimizing its inventories levels so to reduce the bullwhip effect and consequently minimize the supply chain costs. The supply chain here proposed consists of five stages – customer, retailer, wholesaler, distributor and factory – and its modeling is carried out through a system dynamics approach, utilizing the Berkeley Madonna software

The expansion of the port of Genoa: the Rivalta Scrivia dry port

There are two main ways for a port to face the long-term increase in freight demand: a better usage of the current available port land or an enlargement to new port areas. Within this second solution is included the movement outside of the port’s borders of some activities currently carried out in the port, but not directly connected with the loading or unloading of goods. This relieves the territory and the port itself of the negative consequences (represented by the occupancy of scarce resources, such as the port areas) resulting from increased time and costs due to the handling of goods taking space and time from more value added activities and from the negative externalities associated with the presence of the port industry highly impacting the city fabric (such as congestion, atmospheric and acoustic pollution and space taken away from the city). This is the situation of the port of Genoa, where the particular orographic configuration of the territory and a large urbanization of the immediate proximity of the port property have forced the Genoa Port Authority to look for more space in the hinterland in order to manage the import/export of goods in the most efficient and effective way possible. This paper examines the case study of the Rivalta Scrivia dry port, located 75 km from Genoa along the railway line that links the Ligurian capital with the reference market. The need for more space at the service of Genoa port is confirmed by the analysis of the port demand, including both current and forecasted container traffic

Turin, Rome and Genoa: comparison of the level of maturity of three large Italian cities towards Mobility as a Service

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is the new urban mobility paradigm which, through a digital platform, makes all types of public and private transport services available to users. This contributes to increasing sustainability in cities and the quality of citizens' mobility. However, several factors influence the success of MaaS implementation: openness and data sharing of transport operators; citizens' familiarity and willingness to pay; policy, regulation and legislation; transport services, and infrastructures. Many of these factors are strictly related to the features of the city where MaaS has to operate, and more specifically to its maturity (including multimodality, integration, flexibility, and user-oriented approach). To this end, target users and their willingness to pay for MaaS operations require a specific assessment. This paper compares three large Italian cities - Turin, Rome and Genoa, very different in terms of size, complexity, local transport policies and potential for MaaS application-, with the final goal of outlining common and specific drivers, barriers and requirements for the successful adoption of MaaS. The research findings can provide useful insights to urban mobility decision-makers to avoid the unsuccessful implementation of MaaS, especially when dealing with cities with conservative mobility policies, such as Rome, or where MaaS is a novelty

The Spread of MaaS Initiatives in Europe: The Leading Role of Public Governance Emerging from an Italian Regional Application

Mobility as a service (MaaS) is a promising lever to achieve a more sustainable, co-modal, and flexible urban system for daily mobility. MaaS is crucial to addressing the challenges imposed by hyper-urbanization, social changes, saturation of public soil with private motor vehicles, and local and global environmental issues. The aim of this paper is to analyse important characteristics of MaaS, namely public governance, regional scale, and high level of development. A total of 13 MaaS initiatives implemented in some European cities were compared using multi-criteria analysis. The results show that, although the MaaS implementation process is faster for private initiatives, public governance is shown to be the most appropriate entity to develop stable MaaS services, as it can enable the achievement of a higher level of integration, coupled with a high rate of service adoption, as well as reduce market entry barriers for service providers while also guaranteeing fair competition, and consequently fostering a higher level of service provided to users. The regional coverage of MaaS is crucial to ensure service provision to a wider population, living in both metropolitan and rural areas. These important features are included in the BIPforMaaS project run by the Italian region of Piedmont, described in detail in this paper

Role of COVID-19 and motionless communication on expected trends of mobility: Evidence from Italian and Turin data

The 2020-2021 pandemic has changed everyday mobility for part of the world. One of the main elements of change is the consolidation of distance working, which further prompted communications without mobility. The emergency-induced reduction of systematic travel demand has been counterbalanced by the increased volume of web traffic. As a result, communications which formerly required mobility have been regularly performed virtually during the lockdowns. This paper quantifies this phenomenon, with a focus on the Italian city of Turin, in Italy, which was one of the first countries hit by COVID-19, soon after China. Local mobility data trends before and during the lockdown are presented and compared. Implications for the "new normal" ahead are discussed. The paper provides directions for further transport policies, with the aim of advancing knowledge of this transportation topic

Assessing the Feasibility of MaaS. A Contribution from Three Italian Case Studies

Making all types of public and private transport services available to users through a single and integrated digital platform is the new urban mobility paradigm called Mobility as a Service (MaaS). This scheme allows both a more sustainable urban transportation system and a more effi-cient transport service for users. For MaaS to be successful, its implementation should adapt to the specific features of the location covered by the service. The city maturity level has to be considered in terms of multimodality, infrastructures, regulations, user goals, and user willingness to use and pay for MaaS services. This paper discusses and analyses the results of a survey on MaaS con-ducted in three Italian metropolitan areas: Turin, Rome, and Genoa, which have very different and specific characteristics. The comparative analysis enables the definition of drivers, obstacles, and requisites for MaaS implementation to be successful. When it comes to cities with conservative mobility policies or cities that are new to MaaS experiences, resistance to adoption of the service might occur. The results of the research discussed in this paper can be a useful resource to enable decision makers to develop more effective and efficient transportation policies

A new methodology for accidents analysis: The case of the state road 36 in Italy

6noEvery year more than 1.35 million people die for road accidents and several million suffer serious injuries, which force them to live with compromised health conditions. Over the last decades, road safety research has focused on improving modelling techniques. However, due to the lack of expertise and statistical skills, such approaches might not be used by local authorities and road managers for road safety evaluation purposes. This paper proposes an operational methodology to analyze road accidents with the aim of increasing road safety. More specifically, the methodology enables to identify the most critical road segments to prioritize economic resources allocation accordingly. By using the data collected by the Road Police Department of Lombardy Region (in Italy) from 2014 to 2018, this methodology has been successfully applied to State Road 36, which is recognized as one of the busiest roads in Italy with a very high number of accidents occurring every year. The proposed methodology may support public administrations and road managers - involved in the definition and implementation of safety measures - to reduce the number of road accidents identifying and implementing prioritized interventions. Moreover, the methodology is general enough to be applied to each segment of a generic road infrastructure.openopenBorghetti F.; Marchionni G.; De Bianchi M.; Barabino B.; Bonera M.; Caballini C.Borghetti, F.; Marchionni, G.; De Bianchi, M.; Barabino, B.; Bonera, M.; Caballini, C

Modeling and Simulation of the Rail Port Cycle

For the undisputed degree of complexity that characterizes the port system, it certainly belongs to the category of systems of systems. In fact, the functioning of a port is made possible due to the interaction of a certain number of subsystems, which in turn depend on other subsystems. The goal of this paper is to model and simulate, by adopting the System Dynamics methodology, a subsystem of the port context: the rail port cycle. The model has been applied to some important container terminals located in Italy. \u201cWhat-if\u201d scenarios have been tested with the objective of underlining system bottlenecks