Transportation decisions of shippers are crucial for policy formulation in ports and shipping lines. Shippers' port selection, for export or import cargo, depends on the location of the shipper; preferences for shipping line services; and facilities offered by ports. In this paper, we model the port choice behaviour of shippers, in China, using a shipper level database obtained from a survey of shippers of containerised cargo in China in 1998. We use a discrete choice model where each shipper faces a choice of 14 alternatives, based on shipping line and port combinations, and makes his decision on the basis of various shipper and port characteristics. The results indicate that the distance of the shipper from port, distance to destination (in case of exports), distance from origin (in case of imports), port congestion, and shipping line's fleet size play an important role. We estimate elasticities of changes in these variables and their impact on the market share of shipping line–port combinations. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2003) 5, 23–39. doi:10.1057/palgrave.mel.9100062

Container ports in Japan are not experiencing rapid cargo handling growth. Recently, however, a reorganization of port use is taking place due to a variety of factors like growing container ship size, diversified Asian shipping routes, increasing import cargo and the Great Hanshin earthquake in Kobe in 1995. This paper analyzes the operational efficiency of eight major international container ports using a "window" application of data envelopment analysis for the period between 1990 and 1999. The paper shows a distinction between ports with timely development and sound demand growth and those with deferred re-planning and slow demand recovery. The Port of Tokyo has successfully redeveloped to receive large-sized container vessels and is observing increased and wellbalanced incoming and outgoing traffic, and hence remains DEA efficient in our analysis. The Port of Kobe still needs to implement further measures to attract new users and previous users due to the Great Hanshin earthquake. The BCC model of the DEA takes into account small-scale operations of Yokkaichi and Shimizu Ports, and appraises their recent increasing demand for Asian routes. The appropriate design of window length is also proposed in the study.

This article proposes a quantitative analysis of the interdependencies between port specialization and regional specialization across the world. A global database is elaborated, covering about 360 port regions located in both developed and developing countries. One main goal is to verify how interdependent port traffic and regional characteristics are, in a context of increasingly flexible commodity and value chains. Despite the aggregated dimension of available data and the heterogeneity of local situations, the main results confirm the affinity between the primary sector and raw materials traffic, and the tertiary sector and general cargo traffic, while the industrial sector offers mixed evidence. This allows confirmation of a number of fundamental questions raised by both economic geography and regional science about transport and local development. The global typology of port regions provided in this article underlines certain regularities in their spatial distribution and discusses the policy implications of particular cases.

International audienceEmpirical evidence remains lacking about the territorial embedding of material flows. An analysis of 189 port regions in advanced economic areas, or Europe, Japan, and the United States, validates a number of ideas proposed by regional science and transport geography. Core economic regions such as large urban tertiary centres concentrate most valued, diversified, and weighty traffics, while more peripheral and traditional ones tend to specialize in bulky traffics. Moreover, the level of industry relatedness of port traffics appears as a key component of the socioeconomic wealth of port regions. The research also underlines noticeable linkages between types of port regions and types of port-related policies across the three studied areas

HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.