Obbie Hadrian

Global container terminals are under increasing pressure to enhance operational efficiency, lower emissions, and mitigate labor dependency. Despite the technological maturity of automated container terminals (ACTs), their large-scale rollout remains uneven, hindered by fragmented knowledge, uncertain performance impacts, and lack of an integrated implementation framework The industry needs a data-driven, evidence-based framework that connects technology choices with measurable operational and sustainability outcomes.

This research develops a scalable, hybrid decision-support framework that helps ports design and validate their automation roadmap through three interlinked stages:

• A systematic literature review synthesizes global research trends and identifies key drivers, barriers, and technologies in port automation.

• A comparative case study analyzes automation practices in European ports, distinguishing between fully automated and conventional operations.

• A simulation-based validation study, integrating the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), models multi-criteria performance outcomes of different automation strategies under real-world data from Finnish and Spanish ports.

For industry, the framework functions as a navigation tool: quantifying trade-offs, identifying risk-optimal investment phases, and supporting evidence-based automation strategies. Meanwhile, academic contribution of this research is a validated decision-support framework that enriches the theory of digital transformation in maritime logistics.

Existing studies typically isolate technical, economic, or environmental aspects of automation. This research advances the field by bridging these dimensions through integrated analysis, empirical grounding, and methodological synthesis, forming a unified roadmap for automation implementation in container terminals.