Transition Pathways Towards Sustainable Maritime Logistics in Europe: A PCA–Cluster Analysis Based on Eurostat Indicators

Background: Sustainable maritime logistics has become a strategic priority for achieving the European Green Deal objectives and accelerating the transition towards low-carbon and resource-efficient transport systems. Nevertheless, existing studies mainly focus on isolated sustainability dimensions, providing limited evidence on the heterogeneous transition patterns followed by European countries. This study proposes an integrated analytical framework to identify and characterise longitudinal transition patterns towards sustainable maritime logistics across Europe. Methods: A harmonised database was developed using Eurostat indicators covering European countries for the period 2015–2023. Following data preprocessing, missing-value treatment and standardisation, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was employed to reduce dimensionality, while cluster analysis was applied to identify groups of countries sharing similar sustainability and logistics transition characteristics. Results: The proposed framework reveals that the transition towards sustainable maritime logistics does not follow a single homogeneous pattern but multiple differentiated pathways. The analysis identifies distinct country profiles associated with energy transition, modal integration, circular economy performance and environmental sustainability, highlighting heterogeneous convergence dynamics throughout the study period. Conclusions: The findings provide a robust and transferable benchmarking framework for monitoring sustainable maritime logistics transition at the European level. By identifying differentiated transition pathways rather than static rankings, the proposed approach offers valuable evidence for supporting strategic planning, policy design and decision-making aimed at accelerating the transformation of maritime logistics systems towards sustainability.