Athanasios Ballis

National Technical University of Athens | NTUA · Department of Transportation Planning

Recently, very large-scale decision support systems (DSSs) have been developed, which tackle very complex problems, associated with very extensive and polymorphic information, which probably is geographically highly dispersed. The management, updating, modification and upgrading of the data and program core of such an information system is, as a ru...

Energy is an important geopolitical driver, and energy security is an emerging field with growing interest in its measurement. This Chapter is a guide to energy security research that aims to estimate a quantitative energy security index with a geopolitical focus, by providing an in-depth dynamic geopolitical look into the history, evolution, dimen...

The current work focuses on the islands of the South Aegean and attempts to highlight the importance of airport infrastructure for their tourism development. The impact of other island characteristics (area, shore length, population, number of beds in various classes of accommodation, cost of accommodation, island’s attractiveness, distance from Pi...

Natural gas is an environmental friendly energy source used in various residential and industrial applications. Gas energy security is high in the agenda of Europe asking for the systematic investigation of all pertinent factors. To this aim a gas network model was developed for testing demand and supply scenarios. Demand scenarios assume that alth...

Wagon fleet is an essential component of the railways business. Motivated by the recent concern on freight wagon management in Europe and based on the experience from the deployment and pilot demonstrations of an advanced wagon management system in Europe, the current work presents main technological and organizational issues associated with a wago...

A substantial number of publish works for maritime container terminals focuses on the Quay to Storage area subsystem investigating locational, scheduling and job assignment problems for various equipment configuration, work plan formations, operating conditions and optimization objectives. The current work attempts to review published works in a wa...

Air cargo represents an increasingly significant share of the transport market. In addition to mail, express, and emergency cargoes, air transportation is being used for the new market niches of perishable commodities and just-in-time deliveries. The transport and processing of these cargoes is performed by a specialized system that includes dedica...

The development of a freight village in the region of Thriasio, located nearby to Athens is an ongoing project in its early stage. In the present paper three alternative designs of the freight village layout are compared by means of multicriteria analysis and more specifically using the PROMETHEE method. The multicriteria framework consists of sele...

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are extensively used in many business operations in both the public and private domain. However, in many cases, the topics of interest of many modern businesses or public agencies shift or change very rapidly in time. It has been observed that some complex DSS become obsolete even before they are fully developed. This...

In many cases, complex Decision Support Systems (DSS) used in business operations in both the public and private domain may become very demanding, as far as the information system (IS) that implements them is concerned. Specifically, they may require very bulky databases, containing information that may be complex, diverse and even polymorph, a fac...

The development of the Tram-European Networks and the formulation of a common transport policy are essential elements in the economic and social development of the European Union. Such activities require significant information about current status (passenger and freight transport volumes, congestion, environmental impacts, etc.) and reliable forec...

Freight villages reflect a modern way of organizing logistics, transport, and goods distribution activities. Warehouses are a basic element in such building complexes, and their efficient planning and operation is essential for the viability of the system. Warehouse design requires a mixture of analytical skills and creativity. Although effort has...

Freight villages reflect a modern way of organizing logistics, transport, and goods distribution activities. Warehouses are a basic element in such building complexes, and their efficient planning and operation is essential for the viability of the system. Warehouse design requires a mixture of analytical skills and creativity. Although effort has...

The development of the Trans-European Networks and the formulation of a common transport policy are essential elements in the economic and social development of the European Union. Such activities require significant information about current status (passenger and freight transport volumes, congestion, environmental impacts, etc.) and reliable fore...

The expansion of the urban railway in the city of Athens with two new Metro lines required the upgrading of the existing infrastructure in order to comply with the new modern lines in terms of capacity and quality of service. This paper presents a simulation-based modelling tool that was developed and used for the purposes of the relevant capacity...

The context of this paper concerns the structure of an expert system based modelling tool that was developed and used within the framework of a recent European research project. The objective of the expert system is to produce alternative “technically sound” terminal designs, based on a number of user-defined parameters (cargo volume, loading unit...

The quality of service issue plays a key role in the design and operation of intermodal freight terminals. Though not straightforwardly stated, the level of service offered by these facilities is strongly related to the terminal's productivity as well as to the decisions associated with infrastructure investment. Despite its importance, no widely a...

The development of innovative systems for rail and maritime terminals is an issue high on the agenda of the transport industry. In Europe, a number of new transport systems for unitized cargoes are already in the mature design or pilot phase. A study was done to present a subset of these systems for which pilot demonstrations exist, to identify the...

The development of innovative systems for rail and maritime terminals is an issue high on the agenda of the transport industry. In Europe, a number of new transport systems for unitized cargoes are already in the mature design or pilot phase. A study was done to present a subset of these systems for which pilot demonstrations exist, to identify the...

The significant cargo volumes transferred by sea, in combination with the increased technological and operational requirements that international competition imposes, lead to the continuous upgrade of infrastructure and equipment of modern port terminals. Within this framework, a number of new technologies for the transhipment of unitised cargo hav...

The investigation of alternative sites for the construction of a new airport is a complex task that involves the cooperation among scientists having complementary disciplines. A typical investigation comprises a thorough examination of all pertinent factors: existing and foreseen land use planning, characteristics of wind and weather conditions, op...

Within the framework of the promotion of the environmental friendly modes, the European Commission has launched a number of research projects aiming at evaluating technical and organisational innovations that can improve the performance of the freight transport operations in the rail sector. The scope of this paper is to present a modelling approac...

Charter passengers represent a category of airport users that imposes uncommon operating conditions to airport terminal facilities, which, if not anticipated, may result in a low level of service. This is usually the case of airports serving areas of tourist attraction where growth in demand of charter flights has made them the dominant passenger f...

The airports of Kavala and Alexandroupolis serve a wide catchment area in Northern Greek periphery, offering air transport services to almost half a million habitants as well as to international tourists. The international passengers of Kavala airport are travelling mainly during the summer period with charter flights that impose high peaks in var...

The paper evaluates technical and logistics developments that could lead to increased economic and technical efficiency of rail–road transport terminals. The main design parameters are identified (length and utilisation of transhipment tracks, train and truck arrival behaviour/patterns, type and number of handling equipment, mean stacking height in...

The industry as well as the European Commission has launched a number of initiatives that, when brought to fruition, will raise the level of competitiveness of seagoing and inland waterway transport modes. These initiatives include the development of new technologies for the achievement of better vessel turnaround times and faster cargo flows. The...

In this paper a conventional low volume maritime terminal equipped with straddle carriers is compared against an advanced automatic stacking crane/automatic guided vehicle alternative. For both configurations a convenient layout was designed, a reasonable level of service (common for both terminals) was adopted, and the required amount of equipment...

The objective of this paper is to introduce a computer simulation model with on-screen animation graphics, which can simulate the operations of a container terminal equipped with straddle carriers. The movements of the equipment are simulated as realistically as possible, to include time losses due to the mismatch in the sequence of equipment movem...