This award is to Rutgers University at Camden to support the activity described below for 36 months. The proposal was submitted in response to the Partnerships for Innovation Program Solicitations (NSF-05566).
Partners Rutgers University (lead institution), Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, The New Jersey Department of Transportation, New York Shipping Association, Inc., Maher Terminals Logistic Systems, Inc., and Vista Transport Group (VTG), Inc.
The primary objective of this proposal is as follows: to take advantage of existing relationships between Rutgers University, ContainerTerminals, State and Local Highway Agencies, freight, and technology companies and members of the Port of New York & New Jersey (PONYNJ) to create a forum for a dynamic and sustainable collaboration between the maritime industry and the wider research community. The specific objectives of this collaborative project are the improvement of freight movements, reduction of traffic congestion, an increase in the competitiveness of the Port and, thereby, improvement of the overall regional economy. These objectives will be achieved by: (1) cultivation of relationships and understanding of roles among stakeholders in the wider freight transport system; (2) development of analytical group decision-making tools that will enable the partnership to evaluate collective efforts and the impact of individual decisions on other parties within the system, and (3) Establishment of educational and training capabilities for practitioners, academics and students.
Intellectual Merit: This partnership will develop advanced and unique meso-micro simulation tools for helping industry stakeholders jointly evaluate the impact of individual policies and decisions on the entire system. The distinguishing aspect of the meso-micro-simulation tools is in their ability to model large networks to a desired level of detail. Most current applications use either macro-simulation tools, which allow modeling of a larger network, but do not have the ability to capture congestion effects. In contrast, micro-simulation tools model congestion more realistically, but can only do so for a relatively small network; and, thus, in most cases, cannot to model the entire area of interest. These simulation tools, when integrated within an analytical group decision-making framework will provide an interactive and mathematically robust test bed to simulate and evaluate various scenarios at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. This partnership will provide a mechanism for establishing industry-wide standards for overall optimal port performance.
Potential Economic Impact: Moving to a systemic approach to decision-making within the freight and maritime transport industry has the potential to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the entire system. The improved performance of the freight and maritime industry will have a significant economic impact, both locally in the New York and New Jersey areas and globally. The collaborative forum created under this project to understand interdependencies and industry-wide dynamics also has the potential to improve security within the system. Analytical tools developed as part of this project can be applied to improve interactive dynamics within other complex systems such as law enforcement. Accordingly, this project will yield applications far beyond the freight and maritime industry. In summary, this project will create significant direct economic and security benefits to the maritime industry specifically and more generally to the citizens at large.
