The efficient evaluation of the transport sector for the implementation of sustainable mobility solutions is a crucial challenge for governments and decisionmakers for strategically reducing the negative economic, social, and environmental impacts of transport. Current research trends on transport macromanagement indicate a lack of integrative and comprehensive approaches to mitigating transport sustainability parameters. Thus, a holistic perspective on transport macromanagement is deemed necessary for supporting the transition towards a more sustainable approach to transport macroplanning. This paper contributes to the development of transport macromanagement by offering insights, tools, and strategies for contemporary sustainable transitions in the transport sector. A methodology for sustainable and multimodal/cross-border passenger services for the Italy-Croatia cross-border area, with a systematic development cycle composed of six interconnected steps for fostering stakeholder cooperation, is proposed in this paper. Furthermore, a methodological framework, a SWOT analysis, and a gap analysis on the function of defining port improvement for the action plan are elaborated in this study. The study analysis is based on the international passenger terminal ports in a passenger liner service by using a survey analysis conducted among the port authorities in the cross-border area. Moreover, the main aim of the methodology is to provide a holistic framework for the sustainable development of a complex and multilayered transport environment that encompasses a multiplicity of various stakeholders.

The strong and close relationship between the port and the city, which is often a consequence of historical circumstances, has become disrupted due to the negative impact of the port on the urban environment. The disruption of this relationship is forcing port city authorities worldwide to find effective methods to renew the port – city relationship. As an additional element to this complex relationship, the concept of sustainability is taken into consideration. Therefore, the relationship between the port and the city needs to be studied in compliance with economic, social and environmental criteria. This paper studies port and urban systems interdependently, as well as their integration into a sustainable whole. The dynamics of change in the port – city interface zone require careful planning and assessment before intervention and development. Accordingly, transition management is presented as a mechanism for renewing, coupling, and monitoring the relationship between the port and the city concerning their complex and dynamic nature. The paper’s key findings are based on the contribution of relevant economic, social, and environmental criteria through which the possibility of developing a systematic framework for a coordinated transition to a cooperative relationship between the port and the city from the perspective of sustainability is realized.

Green port governance is an emerging and recent port restructuring process influencing port authorities regarding adopting recurring sustainable governance practices within their business models. However, contemporary academic bias towards a particular aspect of port sustainable governance practice leads to publication results fragmentation and difficulty in a collective assessment of the conclusions. The lack of holistic research endeavors to port sustainable governance practices hinders the identification of organized, specific, and goal-oriented factors indispensable for coherently directing ports to sustainable and green transitions. In order to bridge the identified gap, this paper conducts a bibliometric analysis of 278 scientific articles on the emerging green port governance concept in the maritime industry, published in 113 academic outlets, authored by 695 scholars, and obtained from the world’s most reputable scientific database—ISI Web of Science. The conducted meta-analysis via HistCite software revealed the most prestigious academic institutions, the most prominent scientific journals, the most impactful scientific articles, and the most influential scholars. The bibliographic coupling methodology via Bibliometrix tool in R software indicated five concurrent research streams on the basis of the top 10% of the scientific articles: (1) Adoption of contextualized models of port governance reform as a consequence of port multi-scalar embeddedness forces and institutional stretching; (2) Fostering port sustainability competitiveness via extended resource pools in terms of dry ports coupling; (3) The digitalization role of information systems regarding the interaction between transport, infrastructure, and institutional management in ports; (4) Assessment and innovation in seaport competition policies for the integration of green and sustainable operations; and (5) Conceptual development and awareness raising of port management practices on account of CO2 evidence-based policies regarding port terminals. The application of co-citation analysis methodology revealed future research directions within the five concurrent research streams on the basis of the top 5% trending scientific articles. The detailed content analysis assesses the scientific mapping of future research directions via the structural associations of the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework. The cause-and-effect relationships of the structural associations of the DPSIR framework possess the possibility of providing substantial insights into the most influential factor identification regarding the development of green port governance models and self-assessment toolkits.

Cruise tourism as a propulsive branch of tourism is being increasingly affirmed in the field of river transport. Accordingly, the main research problem in this paper is the analysis of the possibility of further affirmation and growth of passenger flows on river cruises on the Danube as the backbone of river traffic in the European Union. In the context of the defined research problem, the paper analyzes: relevant geo–traffic and socio–economic characteristics of the Danube, relevant indicators of passenger flows on cruises on the Danube – intensity, structure, dynamics and distribution of passenger traffic flows. Based on the aforementioned content, the further dynamics of passenger flows on cruises is concluded and forecasted, and the guidelines and factors of valorization of cruise tourism along the Danube Corridor are highlighted.