Efficient hinterland transport is critical to the performance of high-density hub ports such as the Port of Rotterdam, where inland waterway barging offers the lowest energy consumption and external costs of modalities, but the system remains fragmented across terminal operators, barge operators and shipping lines. Centralized platforms such as Nextlogic have been implemented to synchronize barge schedules with available quay capacity. Yet they have optimized berth allocation in isolation, not accounting for downstream effects such as yard density, container dwell time, or the cost of diverting cargo to truck once barge capacity is exceeded or unreliable. This disconnect between the quay and the yard is examined in this thesis as a contributor to the congestion currently observed at APM Terminals Maasvlakte II (APMT MV II), where roughly 45 \% of hinterland flow moves by barge.

This thesis investigates to what extent tactical barge coordination strategies can mitigate this congestion relative to the current Nextlogic operational baseline. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is developed that jointly solves the berth allocation and quay crane assignment problem together with a multi-commodity flow formulation of the yard and is extended with a rolling horizon framework with event-driven re-optimization to capture periodic re-planning and disruptive priority calls.

Before evaluating specific coordination strategies, the value of coupled decisions itself is tested against a uncoupled baseline that mirrors Nextlogic's current planning scope. First,container-to-berth allocation is decided as an input before the berth allocation and quay assignment are scheduled. Both formulations reach identical quay utilization, yet the uncoupled baseline produces 229 container-hours of yard overflow and causes 132 of 800 export containers to miss their scheduled deep-sea vessel. Confirming that combining flow and scheduling decisions removes these operational failures at no cost to quay performance.

Three tactical strategies are determined (unrestricted scheduling, call size maximization and an integrated system cost objective); these are tested individually and in combination across eight configurations, using synthetic data based on APMT MV II's operational profile. The 48-hour with 2 crane instance was solved to optimality and showed the most effective configuration. This consists of combining unrestricted scheduling with an integrated system cost objective; it reduces average container dwell time from 10.54 to 6.56 hours per container, truck redirection from 51 to 44 units and average barge waiting time from 1.58 hours to 0.62 hours relative to the Nextlogic baseline, while simultaneously lowering unutilized quay time and producing more stable schedules under disruptions.

While these results were obtained on synthetic problem instances and should not be generalized without further validation on larger or real-world datasets. The same qualitative pattern holds across three synthetic 48-hour instances. They provide quantitative evidence that shifting from a quay-centric rigid fixed window system to a system-wide coordination objective including unrestricted scheduling is a more effective lever for the different stakeholders seeking to relieve hinterland congestion. Building upon this evidence, this thesis suggests that APMT MV II and Nextlogic move away from rigid, pre-negotiated fixed window slots towards a coordination that balances yard dwell time, truck diversion and barge waiting time into the scheduling objective, since this is what most consistently reduces congestion and keeps the schedules stable when priority calls disrupt it.

This thesis develops, verifies and tests this decision-support model and translates its outcomes into recommendations for the redesign of tactical coordination rules for APMT MV II and more broadly for centralized barge planning platforms such as Nextlogic.
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South Africa holds platinum reserves, renewable energy resources, and an explicit policy commitment to fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), yet deployment has remained at the pilot stage. This thesis asks why these endowments and commitments have not produced commercial FCEV deployment, and under what sector-specific conditions deployment would be institutionally and commercially justified. It compares two application domains, open-pit mining and urban public transport, and within each contrasts the fuel cell (FCEV) and battery-electric (BEV) pathways, using an integrated framework that embeds a Technological Innovation System (TIS) functional diagnosis within an Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) reading of the rules, actors and arenas that shape deployment.

The analysis finds that the deployment gap has different causes across the two sectors, and that treating it as a single "governance failure" obscures more than it reveals. In urban public transport, unfavourable hydrogen economics and the superior near-term readiness of battery-electric buses provide a substantial commercial explanation for non-deployment, which regulatory and infrastructure weaknesses then reinforce. In open-pit mining, fuel cell technology has demonstrated technical feasibility, but its commercial viability remains uncertain; programme concentration, financing risk, weak knowledge retention, and poor coordination appear to have materially contributed to the failure to scale. Nine of the ten institutional barriers identified sit at the collective-choice level, meaning existing agencies can address them without new legislation.

The central contribution is that governance concentration and fragmentation generate different deployment vulnerabilities: concentrated systems, as in mining, can mobilise demonstrations rapidly but are vulnerable to sponsor withdrawal, while fragmented systems, as in public transport, distribute authority and risk but can prevent deployment when standards, finance and procurement are uncoordinated. The thesis translates these findings into sector-differentiated, decision-status-grouped policy recommendations for South Africa's mining and public-transport decarbonisation. ... Read more

Urban infrastructure construction programs typically involve multiple interdependent projects carried out simultaneously, affecting a wide range of stakeholders such as program owners, contractors, residents, businesses and emergency services. These programs commonly rely on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor performance, but existing KPI frameworks remain fragmented, meaning that indicators are typically structured around a single project or organisational level, without a systematic way to connect them across stakeholder groups or across the program as a whole. This means that when one stakeholder group's performance objectives improve at the expense of another's, that is, when a conflict arises between stakeholder objectives, there is no structured overview through which it can be seen. Without a way to trace how KPIs relate across stakeholders and organisational levels, the stakeholder manager cannot detect such tensions until they surface on their own, at which point they may already have escalated into costly or unsafe situations.

This study addresses that gap by designing a decision-support tool that structures a program-wide KPI hierarchy, maps it to stakeholder groups, and systematically identifies conflicts among stakeholders. The main research question guiding the study is: "How can a decision-support tool be designed to structure and visualise an integrated KPI hierarchy, and identify conflicts among stakeholders in urban infrastructure construction programs?". The study follows a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, using Amsterdam's Programma Bruggen en Kademuren (PBK) as a case study to ground and validate the artifact. The PBK is a program renovating over 800 bridges and approximately 208 kilometres of quay walls in Amsterdam.

For the PBK program, the stakeholder base comprises 8 groups spanning 15 sub-groups, whose values are grounded in the Rotterdam value wheel, retaining 16 values across five capitals (financial, material, human, natural and social) as relevant to the program context. The resulting KPI set spans 183 indicators across financial management, infrastructure quality, safety, environmental sustainability, and stakeholder satisfaction, organised into a three-level hierarchy of supporting elements, basic KPIs and comprehensive KPIs, connected vertically (computational or causal dependencies) and horizontally (complementary measures) both within and across capitals. Twenty of these indicators only emerge once all five capitals are considered jointly rather than separately, showing that treating capitals in isolation understates the true scope of what needs to be measured. A granularity matrix further captures the organisational scale at which each stakeholder group engages with each KPI.

This hierarchy and stakeholder mapping is visualised through an interactive tool combining a spatial map of the program's construction assets, an interactive KPI hierarchy canvas, and a filterable conflict register. The register holds 115 conflicts: 65 arise directly from opposing directional preferences between stakeholder groups on the same KPI, 29 propagate upward through vertical connections in the hierarchy, and a further 21 are flagged for review through horizontal connections to a direct conflict. Close to half of all detected conflicts, then, are not visible from any single KPI in isolation, but only become apparent once the hierarchy's connections are considered, underscoring the value of an integrated structure over isolated indicator tracking. Each entry is further linked to the program's physical construction assets and the stakeholders present around them.

Together, these components form a single tool that makes stakeholder conflicts analytically detectable rather than dependent on negotiation or ad hoc judgement after the fact. Rather than resolving conflicts or prescribing actions, it surfaces, in one place, where directional disagreement exists across the program, so the stakeholder manager can decide how to act. Beyond PBK, this demonstrates that value-driven KPI identification, hierarchical structuring and directional conflict detection form a replicable process for stakeholder conflict management in infrastructure programs more broadly, shifting the stakeholder manager's role from reactive to anticipatory. ... Read more

Urban infrastructure programmes increasingly involve multiple simultaneous projects and diverse stakeholders whose priorities do not always align. Project teams already weigh these priorities when making decisions, but this weighing is rarely documented, consistent, or made explicit to those affected. This thesis develops a method for eliciting, structuring, and quantifying stakeholder priorities, combining Value-Focused Thinking with the Bayesian Best-Worst Method, using the Programma Bruggen en Kademuren (PBK), the Municipality of Amsterdam's bridge and quay wall renewal programme, as a case study.

Through interviews and a structured questionnaire across five stakeholder groups, seventeen objectives were identified and weighted. Two coalitions of priorities emerged: a community-oriented coalition centred on safety, usability and participation, and an institutional coalition oriented towards financial performance and delivery, with citizen participation as the single most contested objective, weighted nearly four times higher by community stakeholders than by institutional stakeholders. Safety and risk ranked as the highest overall priority across the programme. These findings are translated into a decision support structure for making priorities explicit and traceable at programme and project level. ... Read more

Water-bound land in inland ports is essential for maintaining seaport–hinterland connectivity, yet its loss or non-mobilisation is rarely considered as a network risk. This paper develops a risk-based framework to assess how shortages of water-bound land in inland ports may affect the Port of Rotterdam. A qualitative multiple-case study of Tiel, Tilburg, Nijmegen, and Venlo combines GIS-based parcel analysis, policy and planning documents, inland-waterway freight data, and semi-structured interviews. Risk is assessed as the product of likelihood and impact, considering land availability, policy recognition and implementation commitment, modal-shift potential, Rotterdam-related flows, regional substitutability, and corridor position.

The results show that land adjacent to waterways is not necessarily available for water-bound use. Conversion often depends on private ownership, relocation, land acquisition, restructuring, and sufficient public funding. The cases demonstrate that governance plays a decisive role. Tiel combines high strategic relevance with limited local recognition and commitment, while Tilburg illustrates how proactive policy, land management, and relocation support can preserve water-bound functions. Venlo shows the limits of governance intervention where structural spatial scarcity dominates.

The study concludes that water-bound land should be treated as a critical spatial precondition for hinterland connectivity. Seaport authorities should therefore adopt differentiated roles focused on agenda-setting, knowledge sharing, coordination, and targeted funding advocacy rather than routine direct intervention in inland-port land markets. ... Read more

Transshipment nodes are the least substitutable components of a multimodal freight network: rail and barge cargo cannot detour around a closed terminal the way a truck detours around a closed road, so how a model represents node failure determines whether it captures the network's real point of weakness. Existing macroscopic models nevertheless treat a disrupted node as either fully open or fully closed, which misses the majority of real events, since more than half of observed port disruptions are partial. This paper presents a day-to-day simulation framework for a transshipment node. It applies continuous, mode-specific capacity loss, lets unserved demand accumulate as a physical queue that rolls over between days, and releases only a limited share of that queue to alternative routes each day, since real shippers cannot re-plan overnight. The framework is applied to Duisburg, Europe's largest trimodal inland port, using the European TEN-T network and empirical European freight demand data; two further nodes of different scale and modal composition confirm the pattern generalises. Partial degradation is not simply a smaller version of complete failure. A 50% capacity loss produces roughly a quarter of the full-closure cost. A binary model treating a half-degraded node as closed therefore overstates its cost by a factor of about four, while one treating it as operational misses that cost entirely. More importantly, what actually limits recovery is not a shortage of alternative routes but how quickly freight is contractually free to use them. Alternative nodes absorb diverted cargo from day one, yet removing the re-planning constraint entirely cuts the cost of a 51-day closure of Duisburg from €2,887.6M to €1,095.5M. Re-planning inertia alone therefore multiplies the damage by about 2.6. Contractual flexibility, not only physical capacity, belongs in resilience planning. ... Read more

Heavy-duty road freight, responsible for almost a quarter of all transport-related CO2 emissions, remains one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise. In the long-haul segment, neither battery electric vehicles (BEV) nor hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) have emerged as a clear successor to diesel: BEVs face range limitations and charging delays, while FCEVs carry high vehicle and fuel costs and depend on sparse infrastructure. This gap creates an opening for early-stage propulsion concepts that may address specific bottlenecks incumbent technologies have not resolved.

This thesis presents the first systematic Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA) of a fuel-assisted pneumatic propulsion system for heavy-duty vehicles (HDV), evaluated under representative EU long-haul freight conditions. The system, developed by HyRoTech and based on a patent concept from TU Delft, combines high-pressure compressed air with onboard hydrogen in a fuel-assisted expansion cycle. The assessment integrates duty-cycle-based performance modelling, operational feasibility analysis and a probabilistic total cost of ownership (TCO) model with explicit uncertainty propagation, applied to four technologies for twelve operationally differentiated scenarios spanning daily mission distances of 500, 750 and 1,000 km with cold-chain and hilly terrain sub-variants.

The study is relevant to four audiences. HyRoTech and its development partners are the primary practical beneficiaries, for whom this provides the first commercial viability assessment of the concept under realistic freight operating conditions. Researchers and methodology developers are the primary scientific audience, for whom the TEA framework demonstrated here is directly replicable. Two secondary audiences, fleet operators and logistics companies, and policymakers and the energy and environment community, are informed by the findings but their decisions are contingent on further technology development.

Performance results confirm that HyRoTech is physically capable of completing all twelve modelled missions. Its required power at source (129-152 kW) is less than half of diesel's (270-336 kW), confirming the energy-recovery advantage of the compressed-air expansion cycle. Range per fill (457-551 km) is sufficient for all three distance bands, positioning HyRoTech between BEV's first-fill range and FCEV across sub-variants. In ten of twelve scenarios, the 15-minute refuelling fits within the mandatory EU driver break, producing zero net dwell time relative to diesel. BEV, by contrast, accumulates up to 170 minutes of dwell per trip at 1,000 km, equivalent to approximately 708 additional hours per vehicle per year. The payload penalty for HyRoTech (-2,903 kg relative to diesel) is cost-neutral under the volume-limited assumption representative of typical EU long-haul operations.

On cost, the technology ranking at 500 km at mode parameter values is Diesel (euro 1.37/km), BEV (euro 1.60/km), HyRoTech (euro 1.82/km) and FCEV (euro 2.67/km). HyRoTech is not cost-competitive against diesel (TCO parity probability 0.0-0.1%) and is decisively cheaper than FCEV (96.0-100% parity) across all twelve scenarios. The comparison against BEV is distance- and terrain-dependent: HyRoTech's TCO falls with distance as its distance-invariant energy cost dilutes over more kilometres, while BEV's TCO remains approximately flat as CAPEX dilution is offset by rising public fast-charging reliance. This structural convergence produces a near-parity result at 1,000 km flat terrain, where the probability of HyRoTech achieving TCO parity with BEV reaches 51%. Under hilly terrain, this probability falls to 33-35% due to HyRoTech's terrain-sensitive stop count and sharper energy demand response. The 2030 scale-up projection, incorporating the EU ETS2 carbon surcharge on diesel, produces a three-way convergence at 1,000 km between Diesel (euro 1.27/km), BEV (euro 1.27/km) and HyRoTech (euro 1.29/km), within euro 0.02/km of each other.

A commercial entry window for HyRoTech exists in cost terms, concentrated in long-distance operations above 1,000 km on flat or moderately graded corridors with volume-limited cargo, the double-fit condition where both the terrain penalty and the payload cost penalty are minimised. This is not a general cost-competitiveness claim; it is a narrowly defined niche where HyRoTech's operational and cost characteristics align favourably. Beyond cost and performance, the integrated assessment in this study identifies three open dimensions that now become the operative questions. Type-approval under UN ECE Regulation 134 is unresolved: as a dual-carrier system combining compressed air and hydrogen, HyRoTech has no established certification precedent and may face requirements that delay market entry independently of its cost position. Infrastructure availability is not validated spatially: the entry window presupposes dispensers along the identified corridors, and early-phase utilisation would push the effective air price above the model's assumption. Operator adoption friction is the most commercially nuanced dimension: a 51% parity probability against a known and increasingly deployed alternative does not constitute the decisive cost advantage typically needed to overcome inertia toward an unvalidated technology. These dimensions are addressed qualitatively in the discussion and point to the natural next steps for both research and commercial development of the concept.

Beyond the HyRoTech case, this study demonstrates a replicable uncertainty-aware assessment approach for early-stage HDV propulsion concepts, extending established EU HDV TCO frameworks by propagating uncertainty through both cost parameters and refuelling time as a performance parameter across twelve operationally differentiated scenarios. The approach addresses a gap in the existing literature where TCO frameworks assume mature, well-characterised drivetrains, and is directly applicable to other pre-commercial propulsion candidates in the long-haul segment where the decarbonisation transition remains most contested. ... Read more

Renewable energy alone cannot close the gap to the Paris Agreement, because a substantial share of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is embodied in the production of goods and materials. Circularity is therefore a central instrument for decarbonising material-intensive, project-based sectors such as the offshore wind construction sector, where large volumes of project-specific construction equipment are manufactured, deployed a limited number of times and scrapped long before reaching their technical end-of-life. This study develops a method to quantify the circularity potential of such equipment and links it to material-related GHG emissions. Through a comparative review of quantitative circularity indicators against requirements derived from practice, the Product Circularity Indicator (PCI) is selected and adapted. The adaptations are as follows: It is applied per material stream, coupled to material-level Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) emission factors, and its original zero floor is relaxed so that the negative scores arising because of underutilisation remain interpretable as a relative index. The method is applied to four equipment types of a global marine contractor. The selected equipment is a monopile gripper, seafastenings, a flange monopile upending tool (FMUT) and monopile plugs. Furthermore, three R-ladder scenarios are modelled, each back-calculated to a 25% emission-reduction milestone. All four equipment return negative baseline PCI scores, confirming a linear material flow and driven primarily by a low utility factor. The monopile gripper and the seafastenings concentrate both the largest absolute emission burden and the deepest circularity deficit. The first scenario, green procurement (recycling) requires 72.2% recycled structural steel and acts as a quick win but cannot compensate for low utilisation. The second scenario, component reuse achieves a comparable carbon target with a smaller circulated fraction. The third scenario, lifetime extension through modularity 1.33 times more service cycles) more service cycles) is the only strategy that raises the utility factor itself and therefore carries the highest GHG- and material extraction reduction ceiling. Semi-structured stakeholder interviews confirm that the binding constraints are organisational and certification-related rather than technical. Academically, the study adapts the PCI to express multi-strategy circular potential at the material-stream level and couples it to LCA emissions. Practically, it delivers a decision-support tool that translates a high-level science-based target into concrete, equipment-specific requirements. The method and the resulting future vision could be transferable to comparable project-based, material-intensive settings. ... Read more

Roads are typically planned to minimize construction cost, with environmental mitigation addressed project by project only after a route has already been chosen. This thesis instead studies road planning decisions at the network level, made before individual projects are designed, and asks how they shape the trade-off between construction cost and deforestation risk. Mine-access roads in Cameroon serves as the case study. It combines extensive intact tropical forest, multiple protected areas, a growing set of planned mining projects, and a sparse paved road network, creating both a clear need for new mine-access roads and clear risk to forest cover. Existing studies address parts of this planning problem separately: how protected-area regulations reshape routes and deforestation and how different network scopes change the trade-off between economic benefit and environmental cost. Carbon shadow pricing is already used to penalize for the loss of carbon sequestration from deforestation by institutions such as the European Investment Bank and the UN-REDD Program in project appraisal, but its effect on mine-access road routing has not been tested. No study integrates these planning dimensions into one national-scale model for mine-access roads in Sub-Saharan Africa. This thesis fills that gap with a spatial model linking mines to Kribi Port through least-cost paths. The model encodes three planning dimensions as adjustable inputs: (1) mine development scope, a most-likely scope of 12 mines versus a more-ambitious scope of 29 mines; (2) spatial restrictions, protected-area boundaries and buffers of 3, 5, and 10 kilometers; and (3) carbon shadow pricing, ranging from 0 to 1,400 USD/tCO2e. For each combination, the model computes construction cost, deforestation, forest fragmentation, and mine connectivity. Results show that no single planning strategy minimizes every outcome simultaneously. Restricting only the protected-area interior increases deforestation just outside its boundary, because routes are redirected to trace the edge as closely as possible. Buffers extending 3 to 10 kilometers beyond the boundary reduce this effect but raise total construction cost, total deforestation, and the number of mines that lose road access. Carbon shadow pricing changes route choice only at extreme price levels; at most tested prices it raises the accounting cost of a strategy without changing the physical route. The strategies examined reduce deforestation risk to protected areas specifically, not total deforestation, and that reduction comes at the cost of more loss elsewhere. These findings show that strategic, network-level planning can make cost and deforestation trade-offs explicit and quantifiable before individual road projects are designed. It can help governments, investors, and conservation actors weigh these trade-offs explicitly rather than resolve them after the roads are built. ... Read more

Battery electric trucks (BETs) are becoming cost-competitive, yet adoption by fleet operators across Europe remains limited. A key reason is that BET procurement is not a simple vehicle replacement. It changes the wider decision-making context of the fleet operator, requiring alignment between the vehicle, charging infrastructure, grid capacity, routes, customers, contracts, and daily operations. Existing research identifies many adoption barriers and drivers and studies individual electrification issues such as charging, routing, and grid capacity. However, it does not connect these factors to concrete procurement decisions, nor does it treat BET procurement as an interdependent decision-making process from the fleet operator perspective.

This thesis develops a multi-level decision-support framework that helps fleet operators structure BET procurement. The central research question asks how such a framework can guide fleet operators in structuring the interdependent strategic, tactical, and operational decisions of BET implementation across transport profiles, while accounting for adoption barriers and drivers. The study combines a literature review of academic and grey sources, conceptual modelling, and eighteen semi-structured expert interviews conducted in two rounds. Interview data were analysed through deductive and inductive coding, and the interdependencies between decisions were mapped in a directed relationship matrix.

The central finding is that BET procurement is an organisational decision-making problem rather than a vehicle-replacement decision. It introduces fifteen interdependent decisions across the strategic, tactical, and operational levels, three of which emerged only from practice. Charging-related decisions shape many of the others. Adoption barriers and drivers do not act as stand-alone factors but operate through specific decisions, and feasibility is determined by seven operational transport dimensions rather than by broad transport profiles alone. The resulting framework starts with these dimensions as a feasibility check, structures the decisions across three levels, and uses operational experience as a feedback mechanism, turning a vague electrification ambition into a phased, context-specific pathway. The framework is an analytical structuring tool that is grounded in practice but not yet validated in a real procurement process. ... Read more

This study investigates the decarbonization of truck-based container transport in the Port of Rotterdam's hinterland, focusing on the adoption of three key low-carbon technologies: Battery Electric Trucks (BETs), Fuel-Cell Electric Trucks (FCETs), and e-diesel. As the largest logistics hub in Europe, the Port of Rotterdam faces increasing pressure to reduce CO₂ emissions, especially from road transport. Using a system dynamics model developed in Vensim and informed by expert interviews, the research explores technology adoption dynamics, including infrastructure availability, technology maturity, awareness, energy source supply, and lifecycle costs. The study identifies interdependent feedback loops among these factors and evaluates policy interventions that can accelerate adoption. Two key policies—stimulation of lower-emission truck adoption and collaborative BET implementation—are found to be particularly effective in initiating exponential adoption growth. Scenario analyses also highlight the importance of early and coordinated policy action. BETs emerge as the most viable near-term solution due to their faster cost reductions and existing infrastructure advantages, while FCETs remain a longer-term option for specific use cases. The findings offer actionable insights for the Port of Rotterdam Authority and policymakers, emphasizing early intervention, national coordination, and a strategic focus on BETs to achieve carbon neutrality in hinterland transport by 2050. ... Read more

This thesis compares two pathways for decarbonising long-haul freight: Battery Electric Heavy-Duty Vehicles (BEHDVs) using static charging and BEHDVs supported by Electric Road Systems (ERS) enabling dynamic charging. Using the Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) and Best-Worst Method (BWM), the study evaluates both options from the perspectives of six stakeholder groups: carriers, shippers, vehicle manufacturers, grid operators, road operators, and freight forwarders.

Stakeholder criteria were identified through eleven expert interviews and weighted via BWM surveys, then linked to measurable, normalised indicators. Results show BEHDV-only is preferred by manufacturers and freight forwarders, while ERS is favoured by grid and road operators for its grid load balancing and land use efficiency. Shippers and carriers show moderate ERS preference, citing reliability and driver well-being benefits.

A phased strategy, static charging for near-term deployment and targeted ERS rollout on high-utilisation corridors, is recommended to balance operational, economic, and long-term sustainability goals. ... Read more

Background.
Global Food Supply Chains (FSC) have been posing risks due to contamination, adulteration, and fraudulent behavior. These issues compromise consumer safety and damage customers' trust. These have led to a substantial rise in the demand for transparency, with traceability serves as a key enabler. Despite its importance, the reality is that complete traceability is more the exception than the rule.

A significant barrier lies in the internal traceability (within company or factory) system, which is often non-transparent and asymmetric, posing a serious threat to the security and reliability of the information. While digitalization offers promising solutions, many organizations continue to rely on conventional systems, or face interoperability or integration issues when digital systems are implemented. There is a high urgency to address these current issues to make traceability more efficient and effective.

Problem.
This research focuses on the category of infant nutrition (baby formula). In this area, transparency is much more important due to the high-risk nature of the consumer group and the relatively small number of companies, which makes the supply chain more susceptible to disruptions. From an academic perspective, there is limited research on frameworks for adopting digital traceability, particularly for internal traceability. To the author’s knowledge, empirical evidence is limited, with no studies specifically addressing traceability in infant formula manufacturing.

From a business standpoint (case study), traceability practices vary widely across factories. Some factories in the studied company use standardized digital systems ("core tools"), while others rely on legacy or manual methods. These differences reflect varying levels of digital maturity and hinder the company’s transparency goals. Inconsistent data management adds pressure on factories to meet traceability standards efficiently. Therefore, this study aims to address the need for a unified approach by answering the question: “What conceptual framework can be developed for the factories in infant formula manufacturing to adopt Digital Traceability tools to achieve Transparency?”.

Research Approach.
We utilized the information system's Design Science Research (DSR) framework of \textcite{hevner_three_2007}. The framework consists of three contexts: Knowledge, Environment, and Design. The formulation of the framework follows Process Pattern Models.

Conceptual Framework of Digital Traceability Adoption.
The conceptual framework for the adoption of digital traceability, as the output of this research, emphasizes the adoption process. It is used as the 'way of thinking' to understand the current situation and what steps to take ahead. The framework consists of three main parts: i) Factors affecting digital traceability adoption (drivers and challenges), ii) Maturity Level Assessment, and iii) Adoption Stages.

Future Research.
This research has contributed to the first steps of digital adoption for internal traceability in FSC. There are several areas recommended. First, to further investigate the relationship between traceability and transparency across different levels of traceability maturity level. Second, the relationship between drivers and adoption outcomes remains underexplored, though this study hints that initial motivations can influence current traceability levels. Third, future research should investigate integrating internal factory traceability with external supply chain traceability, as current literature treats them separately. Finally, the study has identified the components, but solution and more practical use of the frameworks are much more to be explored. For government: Access to emerging technologies enhances digital traceability, this emphasizes the importance for industry and academia collaboration.

Novelty.
The novelty of this thesis is in its integration of Design Science Research (DSR) and the Process Pattern Model (PPM) to develop a practical, systematic framework for adopting digital traceability tools. Unlike prior studies that emphasize external traceability or emerging technologies such as blockchain, this research focuses on the underexplored domain of 'internal traceability' using widely deployed manufacturing systems (MES, PMS, WMS, LIMS, ERP). It further contributes to academic inquiry into infant formula traceability, a niche but high-risk segment that is scarce in the existing literature. By combining theoretical insights with empirical evidence, the framework emphasizes the adoption process, incorporates post-adoption considerations, and delivers guidance for factory-level implementation.
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Abstract─ Indonesia’s container port sector is economically vital but contributes significantly to national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Emissions reduction planning remains fragmented, especially for small and medium-sized terminals. This study develops a standardized, scalable framework for quantifying emissions, forecasting trends, and assessing the cost-effectiveness of decarbonization measures across Indonesian container terminals. Using operational data from five terminals, large (TPS, BJTI, TTL), medium (Palembang), and small (Jambi), an activity-based inventory was built for Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. Future emissions were projected under business-as-usual (BAU) and mitigation scenarios, and five decarbonization strategies were evaluated using Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC) analysis. In 2024, carbon intensity ranged from 20.1 to 34.2 kgCO₂e/TEU, with higher values driven by vessel hoteling and carbon-intensive grids rather than terminal size. Without intervention, emission intensity is projected to decrease by 20% and increasing up to 11% by 2050. Operational measures like layout optimization (as low as €0.1/tCO₂) and operator training (€7.3/tCO₂) offer immediate, low-cost reductions. Structural options such as onshore power supply (OPS) and equipment electrification yield larger abatement but are only cost-effective with a cleaner electricity grid. Solar PV offers moderate reductions and energy resilience, becoming viable at carbon prices above €40/t. Most structural measures are economically attractive between €0–50/t. The findings support a phased strategy: prioritize operational efficiency first, implement OPS and solar PV as the grid decarbonizes, and phase in electrification during asset renewal cycles to support sustainable port development.
Index Terms─ Container Port Decarbonization, CO2 Emissions, Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC)
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Megaprojects frequently face cost overruns and schedule delays, a pattern known as the iron law of megaprojects, which persists partly because traditional determinis tic or probabilistic planning methods are inadequate for managing deep uncertainty. This form of uncertainty arises when the probability, timing, or impact of key events cannot be reliably estimated, often leading to unrealistic schedules and ineffective risk responses. This study investigates the question: How can Exploratory Modelling and Analysis and Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways be applied to improve schedule robustness in infrastructure construction projects? The research focuses on the Schiphol bridge reconstruction, which is part of the Veenix A9 BaHo project and is conducted in collaboration with Count & Cooper. A Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model is built in SimPy and structured using a task dependency graph de rived from the project’s original schedule via NetworkX. The model is sampled 10,000 times under baseline conditions using Latin Hypercube Sampling. In scenario discovery, Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM) is used in combination with a scaling function identifying six high-impact scenarios, which serve both as inputs for robust policy search and as Adaptation Tipping Points (ATP) for the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) schedule. Robust mitigation strategies are derived using a Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm under the Multi-Objective Robust Decision Making framework, with a second PRIM experiment selecting four final robust policies. These policies correspond to at least one of the high-impact scenarios and form the backbone of a conditional DAPP schedule. The DAPP schedule is evaluated against a static baseline using 5,000 DES simulations with identical uncertainty sampling. In 20 comparative runs, it reduced project duration by an average of 67 days and cost by approximately e97.5 million on the entire project schedule. All three robust policies include the measures new design, overtime labour, and electric machinery, suggesting that a focused subset of actions can improve resilience even when the future is highly uncertain. Unlike prior Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) applications, which often focus on long-term or high-level strategic planning, this study embeds adaptive logic within a highly granular, task-level construction schedule based on real project data. This approach raises methodological challenges in how adaptation tipping points are defined, triggered, and monitored within network-based simulation. The findings demonstrate not only the feasibility of combining Exploratory Modelling and Analysis (EMA) and DAPP in operational construction settings but also the need for further research into real-time scenario recognition and policy switching mechanisms under uncertainty. ... Read more

The road freight transport market accounts for 40 \% of the carbon dioxide emissions of the transport sector globally. To reduce these emissions, battery electric trucks (BETs) have the greatest potential as they are zero-emission vehicles. However, compared to the private electric vehicle market, this market faces significant implementation barriers, as seen from the low BET sales. This is mainly due to the optimized market and low profit margins limiting freight carriers from investing in BETs. Furthermore, BETs face serious operational challenges due to long charging times and low operational flexibility. The way to charge the BET plays a big role in finding solutions to these challenges. In recent years, new technologies such as Electric Road Systems (ERS) and battery swapping have been developed next to depot charging and on-road charging. This study gains insight into the preferences of different freight carriers for charging alternatives, using a scenario-based multi-criteria decision analysis(MCDA). Four charging alternatives: depot charging, on-road charging, ERS, and battery swapping, are compared from a freight carrier's perspective on ten criteria identified through literature review, expert interviews, and a survey. The criteria are: Investment costs, operational costs, lifetime of the battery, charging time, operational flexibility, payload capacity, emission reduction, pioneering, complexity of implementation, and strategic policy alignment. To compare the charging alternatives, the criteria weights were obtained through the best-worst method and the analytic hierarchy process, and the performance of the alternatives on the criteria was calculated for daily distance use cases. These performances and weights were combined to arrive at a final ranking of alternatives. This was done for different freight carrier groups based on daily distance, sectors, company sizes, and countries of operation. The results show that financial and operational criteria were considered most important by all the segments of freight carriers. Furthermore, depot charging appeared to be the preferred alternative in most cases, and battery swapping scored best for larger daily distances. However, in almost all freight carrier groups, depot charging, ERS, and battery swapping had similar scores. This result advocates for stakeholders to consider investing in the charging alternatives to give the freight carrier the possibility to choose the charging alternative that is best for them. On-road charging had the lowest score for all the freight carrier groups. This result mismatches with the current investments in the charging alternative and showcases the need to reconsider these investments. Due to the number of criteria and the difficulties in obtaining many responses from freight carriers, the criteria performance and weights can be studied in more detail in future research. Also, using better weighing and evaluation methods and improved research on the four alternatives in a similar scenario can improve the quality of the results in future studies. Also, looking at the problem from different perspectives in future studies can provide great insight into which charging alternatives will shape the future of BETs. ... Read more

Hyperconnectivity (HC) is an emerging concept in logistics that allows for large-scale collaboration of logistics services through shared assets, information exchange, standardised protocols, and flow alignment. A hyperconnected last mile delivery (LMD) system could lead to more optimised routing decisions through processes such as consolidation with fewer vehicle kilometres and more sustainable operations as a result. However, little is known about the combination of connected services that are deemed promising among stakeholders. The Q-methodology was applied to reveal the dominant perspectives among stakeholders on the implementation of HC characteristics in LMD services. Subsequently, the results were fed back to participants to validate whether the analysis was performed accurately. This paper concludes that there is a consensus among stakeholders that the current LMD system is too segmented and that services such as shared parcel lockers and white label concepts could help consolidate delivery operations. Important barriers identified were the fear of losing a competitive market position by sharing information, as well as economic concerns. ... Read more

The European Union’s (EU’s) Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) aims to strengthen the EU’s resource resilience by increasing the autonomy of Critical Raw Material (CRM) supply through EU-based extraction, processing, and recycling, thereby reducing external dependencies and promoting a circular economy. The CRMA mandates, among others, that at least 25% of CRMs come from EU-based recycling. Copper, a key CRM, faces growing demand, and with mining alone, future supply will not fulfill demand. This research analyzed the copper supply chain before and after the CRMA. It was found that recycling is the most promising solution for adherence to the CRMA and a sustainable and resilient future. The study develops a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to optimize the European copper recycling network under the CRMA recycling requirement. The model minimizes total costs while determining the optimal number, locations, and capacities of recycling facilities. The model is tested through a case study of a natural resource company and is usable to similar firms. Results identify four optimal facility locations: Stuttgart, Geithain, Bologna, and Barcelona, which were selected based on, among others, geographic centrality and supply and demand quantities. Sensitivity and scenario analyses reveal the network is vulnerable to facility outages, supply shortages, and significant demand increases. Decentralizing the network by adding a fifth facility improves resilience with limited additional cost. ... Read more

This study focuses on optimizing last-mile delivery in e-commerce by balancing cost efficiency and customer preferences, particularly for mixed perishable and non-perishable goods networks. As online grocery shopping grows, ensuring the timely and efficient delivery of perishable products while maintaining quality remains a critical challenge. The model evaluates home delivery, attended pickup points, and lockers, revealing that cost-driven strategies shift deliveries toward self-pickup, with perishable items primarily assigned to attended pickup points due to temperature control. The findings provide insights for improving delivery network design, enhancing service quality, and optimizing the distribution of both perishable and non-perishable products. ... Read more