Abstract. Transport has always been and remained one of the main driving forces in the economical development of any country including Lithuania. Th e paper assesses a positive impact of transport on Lithuanian economy in the light of the analysis of the main indicators measuring the success of the transport sector: the share of transport and warehousing sectors to national GDP (%) and the share of the export of transport services in GDP (%). It is also widely acknowledged that transport is going to play a crucial role in economic development in the future, especially in transitrelated transport like the Baltic States. On the other hand, the growth of transport, particularly in road transport, has had a signifi cant impact on congestion, safety and pollution. Th erefore, the task of transport decision makers is to fi nd the key for sustainable transport development and reduction of a negative transport impact to sustain the transport sector as the engine of economy. Th e paper analyses both the positive and negative impacts of transport on economy and evaluates the possible ways developing the sustainable transport system.

The shortage of the free space in the port areas is the reason to search for alternatives. This paper focuses on the dry port concept which is a new approach to solving the mentioned problem. The dry port concept is based on moving of intermodal terminals further to hinterland from the port areas. It helps to avoid traffic bottlenecks, to connect cargo handling from the port with other types of cargo at one common transport centre and it can help develop the hinterland areas. The BSR Interreg III B NP project Inloc (Integrating logistics centre networks in the Baltic Sea Region) showed an initiative to elaborate the concept and to study the feasibility to attract transport operators. The research was done partly by the authors of the article – partners of the Inloc project. Common results of the dry port research and conclusions of the approach elaborated by the article authors are presented.

The principle of third party logistics has grown into a very important and a well‐functioning logistics concept, mainly due to outsourcing trends in transport business. Providers of 3PL services complemented the effectiveness of logistics supply chain management extending the performance of hauliers and forwarders to what might be called outsourced logistics services providers. The main driver for this was large transportation companies that have striven to render their limited services to the whole transport chain. Firstly, this extended to what now is called forwarding services, i.e. responsibility and transport service was extended from only physical transportation to additional services. Then some transport and forwarding companies continued enlarging their responsibility so that it included an increased part of the transport chain up to a total responsibility for the entire transportation, from production to consumption. A nature of transportation services became more and more the nature of logistics. Companies started offering complete logistics solutions, instead of only isolated physical transportation services. This allowed a customer to concentrate on the core business instead of paying much attention to material flows.

The rapidly changing world determines changes in the business processes. Logistics and transport are the areas facing constant changes. Therefore, an important point is to analyse the current problems of logistics and transport within the context of the changing environment. For many years, the experts of the Dept of Logistics and Transport Management of the Faculty of Transport Engineering from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University have been pursuing research both, in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) in Lithuania and foreign countries. This research has been directed toward improvements to logistics and the entire supply chain in pursuit of economic, social and ecological competitiveness, an increase in the competitiveness and attractiveness of the transport system in the context of sustainable development, the impact of this system on the economic and social welfare of society, an increase in the competitiveness and attractiveness of the transport sector of improving the legal framework and the application of innovative technologies (including IT) in the transport sector aimed at implementing economic and social cohesion goals. The article deals with some of the key issues of the above introduced research.

Over the recent years, the use of containers in the transport system has dramatically increased. The rise of world containerisation is the result of the interplay of macroeconomic, microeconomic and policy-oriented factors. World trade is facilitated through the elimination of trade barriers and the liberalisation and deregulation of markets. Market liberalisation revealed a demand for enhancing the development of logistics services throughout the world. In the conceptual metamorphosis of the transportation system, cargo movements are viewed in light of the total distribution system. Producers, commodity shippers, ocean, air and land carriers, ports, logistics managers, freight forwarders and consignees are involved in such a total system. The physical distribution of cargo, then, involves an integrated logistics system. This article examines of changes in the transport system that occurred during the last decades because of the invention and application of containers. Moreover, an economic model of evaluating the logistic system based on container transportation is discussed.

People have become more conscientious about the environment in recent years. Increasing environmental awareness drives customers to be more selective about environmentally friendly products and forces governments to adopt environmentally friendly policies. As a result, competition in the market becomes more challenging. Thus, companies cannot remain indifferent to adopting environmentally friendly strategies to be sustainable. In this regard, this study investigates the effect of green innovation on firm performance. We also examined whether the environmental uncertainty moderates the investigated effect. For this purpose, first, data were collected from the first 1000 exporting firms declared in 2019 by the Turkey Exporters Assembly using a survey method. Secondly, factor analyses and regression analyses were performed with the data set obtained from 136 companies. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that green innovation increases both environmental performance and economic performance. It also was found that green innovation positively affects firm performance, but environmental uncertainty reduces this effect. According to these results, it was offered that firms should increase their green innovation activities to achieve better outputs and seek ways to reduce environmental uncertainty to keep these outputs at the maximum level. Finally, the research includes some considerations on the positive implications and potential of green innovation in an open-innovation context.

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