The worldwide network of container transport services, both on land and at sea, is becoming increasingly fine-meshed. The growth in the number of intermodal transfer points on the land side, at the sea–land interface in the seaports and at the connecting points of liner services in transhipment ports leads to an increasing number of routing options for a container flow between two regions somewhere on the globe. This increase complicates forecasting the container throughput of a port in the traditional way by linking it directly to a specific hinterland area. In the approach presented here, a port is considered as a nodal point in a network of container routings, where the routings using a certain port add up to the port's container throughput. The model presented here is intended to explain the market share of the port's routings for each of the traffic zones or regions that comprise a port's potential hinterland. Explanatory variables include transport cost, transit time, frequency of service and indicators of quality of service. A logit model is used to quantify the routing choice and to derive from that a demand function to be used for port traffic forecasting and for the economic and financial evaluation of container port projects. The authors had the opportunity to calibrate logit models in the framework of the evaluation of the Maasvlakte-2 container port expansion project in the port of Rotterdam. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2003) 5, 3–22. doi:10.1057/palgrave.mel.9100058
For the economic and financial evaluation of port investment projects it is important to know the demand function of a port's services. The objective of this study is to establish such a demand choice function for the Spanish container port services. The function is derived from the coefficients of a port choice model, for which a Multinomial Logit Model is used and of which the coefficients are estimated with regression analysis. The variables tested concern inland transport cost, ocean transport costs and broad proxy variables for quality of service. Information on container import and export flows for 2007 is from the Spanish Treasury Department.The linear regression analysis is based on differences of utilities of alternative routings of containerised cargoes compared to those routed via the Port of Valencia. The obtained results are satisfactorily in terms of model fit. The estimated coefficients can be used to assess the impact of changes in costs of container flows routed via a port on a port's market share. A demand choice function for the port can be derived by systematically doing so. An example is presented for the port of Valencia.
Transport costs are useful explanatory variables in port choice research. Nevertheless, the availability of such information usually poses a problem. Thus, the formulation of an alternative approach, to be used as a proxy of these variables, would be desirable. The objective of this study is to improve the analysis of container port choice using logit models by adopting physical non-monetary indicators based on maritime distance and ship size. The statistical tests of logit models on port choice using these new variables is compared with the result of using cost variables for the same dataset of choice positions. The statistical outcome is such that it allows us to present this approach as a contribution to the literature on port choice modeling.
For the economic and financial evaluation of investment projects in container ports it is important to know the relation between container throughput and the price of using the port, the demand function of the port's services. The accessibility of the Port of Antwerp is greatly influenced by the depth of the Scheldt River. For the assessment of the economic impact of a river deepening project the demand function for the Port of Antwerp is derived. We have distinguished, among other variables of the demand function, a ‘maritime resistance variable’ expressing the time ships have to wait for the tide. This variable appeared to be statistically significant and to play an important role for the assessment of the competitive position of the Port of Antwerp with respect to other ports in North West Europe. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2005) 7, 336–355. doi:10.1057/palgrave.mel.9100142
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