The article investigates technical, economical and organizational possibilities to enter the Baltic ports for container ships as the result of economic globalization and the increase of transcontinental container transportation.

Port tugs are an important element in port activity and navigational safety issues. Port tugs ensure the safety of big ships while they are entering, manoeuvring, mooring and unmooring, and are of huge importance during other port operations. At the same time, optimizing the number of port tugs and tug bollard pull is also important from a port navigational safety and economic point of view. Calculation and evaluation methods of the optimal request for tugs bollard pull, in particular, port operations, are very important in order to guarantee the navigational safety of the port and ships during the main ship operations in the port. This article provides the number of requested port tugs and bollard pull calculation and evaluation methods on the basis of forces and moments acting on ships. On the basis of real ship voyages and manoeuvring at ports data as well as high accuracy simulators, theoretical methods were used, which were followed by our conclusions and recommendations, which can be used by port harbour masters and tug companies. Modern tugs have become an important element and integral part of modern port navigational safety. Such modern port tugs are also used for navigational safety and other important port functions and activities, such as fire protection and search and rescue operations. The optimal number and capacity evaluation of port tugs depending on port capacity and conditions are studied in this article.

A number of ports are located close to cities or have other limitations on approaching areas of water. The optimization of the port and the use of possible areas of water are linked with the maximum number of the ships that could enter the port. The main factor considered in the presented study is the potential possibilities of water areas used for the ships entering the port as well as manoeuvring, turning, mooring and unmooring operations performed by the largest ships.

Optimization transportation cargo and passengers between ports and regions are very important, because industrial regions are located some distance from ports. The demand for energy request for the movement of transport is a necessity in the modern world. Transport and activity called transportation are used daily, everywhere, and a lot of energy is needed to power the various transport modes. Today different transport modes are being used to transport passengers and cargo. It is quite common to use road transport, which can transport passengers and cargo from door to door. Considering alternative possibilities (road, railway and/or inland waterway transport), it is important, based on theoretical and experimentation, to identify optimal solutions. In finding transport modes that are either most technically or economically effective, we could unearth possible solutions which would require minimal energy use. Unfortunately, with increased transportation, this often leads to traffic congestion on the roads, which requires additional energy (fuel). This situation generates requirements from many stakeholders in terms of finding ways to decrease the transportation time and energy (fuel) consumed by transport modes. A theoretical method evaluation is conducted on the optimal transportation possibility that minimizes transportation time and energy (fuel) use by employing graph theory, which is presented in this paper. The scientific contribution is the development of a transport modes comparative index, which is then used for evaluations. This paper presents possible alternative transportation conditions based on a multi-criteria evaluation system, proposes a theoretical basis for the optimal solutions from an eco-economic perspective that considers energy, and provides for experimental testing during a specific case study. The final results from the case study provide recommendations and conclusions.

Emergency conditions in a port request special precaution measures taken by ships when in the majority of cases they necessitate leaving port waters in the shortest time. Good management, awareness and timely actions can help with avoiding difficulties encountered by ships under emergency conditions at ports. The conducted research suggested in the article has been based on investigation into ship maneuverability considering complicated weather conditions, theoretical methods for the feasibility of ship maneuverability referring to difficult conditions, experimental tests using the calibrated Simulator and evaluation of real ships under similar conditions. The results of the presented research could be used for analyzing the situation in different ports with different ships regarding practical preparation for vessels to leave the port under emergency conditions without any delay.