Ports play a critical role in decarbonising the shipping and transport industry, providing the necessary storage and infrastructure to supply green bunkering fuel and green electricity to ships, trucks, barges and trains. Ports are also a significant actor in the decarbonisation of regional and national energy systems through their facilities to import, export, and store green energy sources.
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Sustainable Transport Engineering - Planning and Design
This course covers roadway design, the fundamentals of road safety, urban transport planning and travel demand forecasting, and public transport planning and operations. These topics are critical to the successful planning and design of the transport system.
Transport Engineering - Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)
This Engineering major teaches you about how people travel around cities, designing new ways to shape movement to reduce the density and congestion of our transport networks, and much more.
Our projects
About
The UQ Sustainable Infrastructure Research Hub is a consortium member of the Port of Brisbane Vision 2060 project.
More information about UQ’s work on this project will be announced soon.
Researchers
Dr Cristyn Meath
Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Gustavo Martinez Tello
Senior Research Assistant
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Dr Jurij Karlovsek
Senior Lecturer, School of Civil Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and IT
Professor Gordon Wilmsmeier
Kühne Professorial Chair in Logistics Universidad de los Andes
School of Management, Colombia
Investigating energy consumption and emissions disclosures in the container terminal industry: implications for the selection of economic instruments to support climate change mitigation
About
Container ports have been identified as fossil fuel dependant transport hubs and a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study examines why it is important to disclose emissions and energy consumption at the container terminal level (as opposed to disclosure by Port Authorities only) to design effective public policies to mitigate climate change. In addition, the research aims to understand the role of transparent information in this market.
To date, the role of climate change mitigation in container terminals has been investigated predominantly from the perspective of the port authority. This is a result of the process of devolution in the industry where different types of private parties emerged to operate container terminals. Thus, container terminal operators’ emissions are seen as beyond or out of the port authorities’ immediate control as contracts do not reflect obligations for environmental reporting nor reducing emissions or energy consumption. Despite the importance of these organizations, research focused on climate change mitigation of container terminal operators remains scarce.
Researchers
Gustavo Martinez Tello
Senior Research Assistant
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Dr Cristyn Meath
Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Professor Gordon Wilmsmeier
Kühne Professorial Chair in Logistics Universidad de los Andes
School of Management, Colombia
About
2022-2023
How do we prepare the workforce in the infrastructure industry to be successful as their work changes, both as a result of digitalisation and the need to transition to sustainable infrastructure?
The change to a sustainable infrastructure focus will require technical and process changes to enable design, delivery and maintenance of infrastructure assets in a decarbonised and circular economy. Increasing digitalisation of all of these processes will be both an opportunity and a challenge for the industry. Workforce adoption of both digital technology and sustainability practices by the infrastructure industry will be central to the success of this transition. This challenge will need to be met by the many players in the full infrastructure value chain, from owners, designers and constructors to users and maintainers over the asset lifecycle.
Events
The UQ Sustainable Infrastructure Research Hub (SIRH) and global professional services firm ARUP, brought a group of interested stakeholders together to discuss the urgency to improve sustainability outcomes in the infrastructure industry.
Read about the event outcomes.
Researchers
Dr Tracy Martin
Research Fellow
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Dr Cristyn Meath
Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Dr Jurij Karlovsek
Senior Lecturer, School of Civil Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and IT
About
2021-2022
This project investigates different infrastructure project procurement models and their influence on circular economy outcomes across the project lifecycle. Leveraging circular economy outcomes will assist the industry in managing resource scarcity, increasing waste costs and growing requirements to improve the sustainability of projects.
Publications
- Karlovsek, Jurij, Meath, Cristyn, Miles-Mwangangi, Lawrence, MacDonald, Charles and Brockmann, Alfredo (2023). Implementing circular economy principles in infrastructure procurement to support circular supply chains. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 1-14.
doi: 10.1108/ecam-09-2022-0908
Researchers
Dr Jurij Karlovsek
Senior Lecturer, School of Civil Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and IT
Dr Cristyn Meath
Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Lawrence Miles-Mwangangi
Research Assistant
Australian Institute for Business and Economics
About
2023-2024
Ports are facing increasing pressure to set targets related to reducing carbon emissions (Scope 1,2 and 3) and their contributions to climate change. This pressure is being driven by country and regional-level commitments as well as stakeholders’ requirements in terms of reporting energy consumption and GHG emissions. In addition, ports are critical to facilitate the decarbonisation of the shipping and transport industry as they can provide the necessary storage and supply infrastructure for example for green bunkering fuel and green electricity to ships, trucks, barges and trains. Furthermore, ports can act as a catalyzer for the decarbonisation of the national or regional energy system through their facilities to import, export, or store green energy sources, and/or having industries clustered or handle freight in the port area facilitating the energy transition. Ports, however, tend to be complex, multifaceted entities involving public and private actors in different configurations at various levels of geographic scales. Thus, port governance and transparency is vital to understand transitions.
This project aims to analyse the current research related to the role of ports in decarbonisation transitions and also identify lessons learned from relevant ports worldwide, including benchmarking tools and main future initiatives of ports.
This research builds on previous work of the project lead Gustavo Martinez Tello and Professor Gordon Wilsmeier, particularly Giro Zero (2021-2024): Steering Colombian Road Freight Transport to zero emissions, Uniandes and Cardiff University for the UK Pact.
Researchers
Gustavo Martinez Tello
Senior Research Assistant
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Dr Cristyn Meath
Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Professor Gordon Wilmsmeier
Kühne Professorial Chair in Logistics Universidad de los Andes
School of Management, Colombia
Dr Jurij Karlovsek
Senior Lecturer, School of Civil Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and IT