The role of the artificial intelligence and smart technologies in the green transition of seaports: the study case of Genoa

As sea ports are increasingly affected by profound transformations (Lattarulo and Piccini, 2017) in response to the new needs for socio-environmental sustainability and adaptation to climate change, the application of Artificial Intelligence and the development of "smart" and robotic technologies have been identified as tools capable of assisting the sustainable transition of ports and the cities in which they are located (Vitali and Foschi, 2021). This research analyzes the AI-based and robotic technologies developed in the PNRR-funded RAISE project, which pursue the goal of reducing the socio-environmental impacts of the port of Genoa, classifying them by type, purpose, socio-ecological impact, economic effect, TRL, applicability and scalability, and examining their potentialities and criticalities for the promotion of the climate-environmental transition and a sustainable governance of the city-port, by means of a SWOT analysis. The results of study indicate that, despite some criticalities due to their autonomy range, environmental sensitivity and social acceptability, the examined technologies show a rather high level of technological maturity along with a context-adaptability and a multipurpose nature that make them suitable for the replication and the scaling up. Moreover, the potential synergies with other technologies under development within and outside RAISE could be leveraged to overcome current technical weak points and further extend their application.