| The pre-crisis traffic volumes at the seaports of Western Europe have demonstrated the unsustainability of port traffic turnover growth, often due to an important bottleneck: the hinterland connections of the ports. The governments are under pressure from industry to take actions, but often the efficient infrastructure optimization measures that are available are not implementable in practice for different reasons. In this research, the implementation of these measures is dealt with. The aim is to identify certain conditions under which they have a high chance of getting successfully implemented.;A three-step framework, which includes cost-benefit analysis approach, but also the analysis of non-financial parameters, is proposed. As the first step, impacts simulation is done, because the impacts of a proposed policy mechanism can differ depending on factors like design of the measure, specific infrastructure network layouts, characteristics of competing modes and existing policies in place. As the second step of the approach, a social cost-benefit analysis of the measure is performed. As the third step, the Systems Innovation approach, which focuses on the interactive mechanisms that shape the emergence and diffusion of innovations, is used. This allows determining the chances of the innovation to be successfully implemented.;The framework is applied in practice to road pricing scenario. This allows drawing conclusions about success factors that are important in practice for introducing a policy measure aimed at tackling congestion on port hinterland connections.;The political and practical dimension of the research results makes them relevant to governments with applications in transport and other fields. The results of this research contribute to the development of more efficient contemporary solutions for problems that transport policies are called to solve. |
