Infrastructure elements are a crucial factor in accommodating larger ships, organizing longer trains, and ensuring the higher flow of goods in intermodal hubs. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) supports the development of infrastructure on the defined transport routes—the Maritime Silk Road (MSR), which includes the European southern transport route through the northern Adriatic. The research emphasizes the importance of the port, and railway infrastructure development on the Baltic–Adriatic Corridor (BAC) by analyzing the pollution level produced from transport means currently employed. The results of SO2, NOx, PM10, and the energy efficiency of intermodal transport chains prove that the current transport route to the northern leg of the BAC via the port of Gdansk is more environmentally friendly, even if it is about 3000 NM longer. The article provides a scientific contribution by pollution data elaboration for demonstrating the need and justification for high investment in BAC in order to establish sustainable transport chains. The study shows that pollution values from supply chains on the Asia–Central Europe axis could be reduced by up to 30% by eliminating infrastructural barriers in the port of Koper and on the railway network at BAC, which is one of the primary goals of BRI.

The sustainable performance of the intermodal transport chain has gained popularity in recent decades, especially due to climate change and numerous European laws aimed at minimizing the negative impacts of transport. In this paper, we have developed a novel three-phase, two-stage approach that is a combination of distance-based analytic hierarchy process/data envelopment analysis (AHP-DEA). The added value of this multi-criteria approach is in evaluating a sustainable intermodal transport chain, with prioritization of the most efficient combinations of transport in accordance with the weights derived from its users. Instead of the classic pairwise comparison, the weights of the criteria were determined using a new distance-based AHP method in which respondents were asked to sort the criteria (transportation time, price, emissions, and variability) pre-selected from the literature in order of greatest importance. Therefore, the approach determines the most efficient transport chain in the transportation corridor. Since a transportation corridor was previously defined, the settings for this corridor were set to constant initial variables. In this way, the above criteria were chosen as inputs, with DEA aimed at minimizing these variables and presenting the results in ranks from highest to lowest efficiency. The potential of our approach was presented in a case study, where the most efficient of the selected transport chains between Asia and the northern Adriatic were chosen. The results show that there are different intermodal transport chains, each of which consists of either maritime and rail transport or maritime and road transport. The paper concludes that the presented multicriteria approach has greater discriminatory power than the current DEA, as well as greater flexibility, since the weights can be derived faster and more effortlessly than is typical. Therefore, this method can help transportation organizers to determine which intermodal transportation chain is the most efficient or sustainable in any given situation.

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This study addresses the highly topical issue of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on port logistics. The impacts are reflected in all three pillars of sustainable operations and development that port logistics should pursue. The economic impact is strong and is reflected in the extremely high transport prices, the accessibility of transport, the lengthening of the supply chain, and the reduced liquidity of companies. The social aspect is very important regarding working conditions and workers’ roles in ports and logistics service providers (LSPs). The dynamic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic also have an impact on the environmental aspect. As supply chains are vulnerable, more attention is paid to the components of time, price, and reliability than greener transportation. This study highlights changes in port logistics due to the COVID-19 pandemic in logistics companies in the northern Adriatic region and covers a specific gap in the understanding of the sustainable adaptations of LSPs in their operations within port logistics. The results enrich the scientific field regarding LSPs to work processes, the digitalization of business processes, and the organization of logistics chains. The results can be used to develop new sustainable business models for port logistics and port governance, as some researchers have already called for because port logistics too often pursue the economic goals of the fastest and cheapest logistics process. At the same time, social and environmental aspects are somewhat neglected. The changes are particularly pronounced in critical situations, such as those typical of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted as part of the project about green port development with external research funding.