Valentina Boschian, Caterina Caramuta, Alessia Grosso, Giovanni Longo
Ports play a central role in global trade and act as key hubs for both maritime and land transport. Free ports, characterized by special customs regimes and fiscal advantages, represent a distinctive segment of this landscape. Despite their relevance, the literature on port gate management and on free ports has developed disconnected research streams, leaving the operational implications of special customs regimes largely unexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating how gate procedures in free ports can be managed more efficiently, using the Port of Trieste as a case study. The analysis combines Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) with discrete event simulation: BPMN served as the logical foundation for capturing the procedural complexity of free port gate operations, while simulation provided the quantitative framework for scenario evaluation. The model was calibrated on real gate access data and validated against observed vehicle volumes. Nine scenarios were evaluated, covering managerial, technological, infrastructural, and disruption-related interventions. The results show that no single measure produces significant improvements across all performance indicators and the integrated approaches consistently outperform standalone measures. Infrastructure interventions, while more costly, prove particularly valuable in improving port resilience under severe disruption conditions.