Impact of the Ruakura Inland Port on the Golden Triangle - a system dynamics simulation study

Abstract

The Ruakura Inland Port, a project developed in anticipation of the increasing freight flows in the future, is an inland port that is expected to add an additional one million TEUs per annum to the Golden Triangle’s freight capacities. Such a change to the system will result in impacts to the other members within it, but traditional research methods cannot fully capture the complexities of a freight system that involves so many variables, hence the need for simulation modelling.

This pragmatic study presents a pilot simulation model using a system dynamics approach so that the relationships within the complex freight system could be better understood. Constructed using the iThink software, not only does this evolvable model show how the addition of the Ruakura Inland Port is going to affect the current freight flows with the Golden Triangle, it was also designed with the aim of helping practitioners identify drivers and enablers within the system so that informed decisions can be made. The results from the simulation showed that the in the first 20 years it is unlikely that the Ruakura Inland Port will have significant impacts on the system until much higher utilisation rates can be achieved. It was also found that the addition of the Third Main and the Waikato Expressway will have relatively small to none impacts.