The Impact of Container Type Diversification on Regional British Port Development Strategies

Abstract

Despite a concentration of container traffic in the southeast of the UK over the last few decades, regional ports are attempting new development strategies to capture or retain specific traffic segments. These include intra-European short sea traffic and a potentially increasing feeder market. These trends are reflected in the movement of different container types, which result in a number of planning challenges related to changing infrastructural and operational requirements. This paper uses highly disaggregated data on container type movements to address three issues that can inform these planning challenges. First, the imbalance of trade resulting in empty container repositioning; second, the requirement for gauge-cleared rail routes to cater for the increasing proportion of high-cube containers; and third, the specialisation of European short sea traffic at secondary UK ports. Results reveal the disproportionate repositioning of empty containers at Scottish ports and the importance of 45ft, high-cube and pallet-wide containers at regional ports, highlighting their focus on intra-European short sea traffic and raising difficulties relating to their lower quality of landside infrastructure (particularly rail) in comparison to the large south-eastern ports. The potential repercussions on hinterland infrastructure development raise questions about both public and private sector responses to regional port development.

Türkiye'de Konteynerleşmenin Gelişimi ve Hacimsel Yoğunluğunun Araştırılması

“…One of the reasons for the port priva�za�on policy carried out by the Turkish government is the desire to benefit the development of the country by using the resources allocated for state ports more efficiently (İnce and Güngör, 2021). It can be seen from examples around the world that governments play a significant role in the development of ports through the policies they develop (Loo and Hook, 2002b;Monios and Wilmsmeier, 2014;Tae-Woo Lee and Flynn, 2011). The development of Turkish container ports, the quadrupling of container traffic volume and the emergence of many container port regions can be shown as suppor�ng investment plans with incen�ves, privileges, and procedural conveniences.…”

Drivers for vertical integration in the rail sector – using wagons as “relationship specific assets”

“…However, an operator will need to make decisions for certain routes or flows; for example, low-deck wagons for physically constrained routes or shorter wagons for flows with a predominance of 45 ft containers rather than multiples of 20 ft common on port shuttles. The ability to match the right wagon to the right flow and maintain utilisation without wasted capacity is essential to the economic viability of intermodal transport (Woodburn, 2011;Monios and Wilmsmeier, 2014). Therefore, the assets themselves are not fixed sources of competitive advantage but rather "quasi-fixed", as the supply cannot be expanded immediately or rapidly (cf.…”