The recent rail traffic growth leads to suppose that the trend is structural. The Port of Venice represents one of the most important port and logistics systems in the Adriatic, and due to its strategic position, it represents an increasingly strong link in the logistics chain between Central and Eastern Europe on one side as well as the East Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Far East on the other side. Connected to the national network through the Venice Marghera Scalo port and through the Venezia Mestre station, the expected impact and benefits for the concerned territories and target groups is the assurance of an efficient railway accessibility. To tackle this challenge, further to some infrastructural interventions NASPA tackled the re-engineering of the software component related to the railway shunting operations (SIMA2) aimed at optimization and effective management of these operations in the port area.

Within PROMARES, the Port of Venice has therefore developed the re-engineering of the existing Integrated System for the Management of the Railway Shunting (SIMA): new functionalities of the system have been implemented and now the SIMA2 could better interoperate with some IT systems used by port communities, such as the Infrastructure Manager, Railway Undertakings and Terminals. Specifically, SIMA2 system optimizes planning procedures efficiency through an optimization of train placement in railway yard and their relative movements using machine-learning techniques and logistic algorithms. Generally speaking, SIMA IT system retrieves, processes and stores data during the manoeuvring procedures and the wagons positioning operations inside a port area or a railway hub, aiming to support management and real time monitoring of the operations. After the upgrading, SIMA2 comprehends the following functional modules: 1) Manoeuvres Management; 2) Manoeuvres Monitoring; 3) Reporting; 4) Account management; 5) Mobile and GPS infrastructure.

Although the software is primarily used by ERF, the holder of the service of rail shunting at the Port of Venice, all the relevant regional and international stakeholders will benefit from the improved logistic efficiency.