A case study of a digital twin for designing intermodal railways operations for a maritime terminal

The design of an intermodal transportation system, composed by road-rail-ship paths, usually passes through the capacity evaluation of the different stages, affected by means of transport features. Synchronicity of different stages and features of the utilities are a key factor in such infrastructure design. The simulation of a project, traditionally based on a static calculation of timetables for transportation connection guarantee, can be done actually with a Digital Twin approach for a whole dynamic simulation of the process. The paper deals with a real case study in which a full intermodal system for minerals transportation, located in a desert, has been fully simulated, with interesting results analysis the for project validation. The intermodal system in object includes a mine-to-terminal truck transportation, a terminal-to-seaport monorail train transportation and a highly automated system for bulk material conveying from seaport to ships.