Emerging Global Maritime Freight Transport System

A global maritime freight transport system has been established since the late 19th century and expanded with containerization. The above map illustrates the structure this system is likely to take in the coming years. The main components of this system are:

Circum Equatorial Route. With the expansion of the Panama Canal expected to come online in 2014, a parity close to capacity will exist for the first time between the Panama and Suez canals. In such a setting, maritime shipping companies may elect to establish circum equatorial routes in both directions with the usage of high capacity (8,000 to 12,000 TEU) containerships. This high frequency "conveyor belt" could support a significant share of global east-west freight movements in a cost effective way. This does not imply a homogeneous service as several different configurations of ports of call are possible along this route, particularly if a 300 nautical miles deviation is considered. This enables different circum equatorial network configurations.
North-South Pendulum Connectors. These connectors reflect existing commercial relations, namely for raw materials (oil, minerals, agricultural goods), such as South America / North America, Africa / Europe or Australia / Asia. For container shipping, they are mostly based on the rationale that there is not enough volume to support transoceanic services, so cargo is collected / delivered along a latitudinal sequence of ports. This conventional network will be expanded with transshipment opportunities with the circum equatorial route.
Transoceanic Pendulum Connectors. Connect through pendulum services selected ports of the facades of large oceanic masses. The three main transoceanic connectors are transpacific, Asia-Europe (through the Indian Ocean) and transatlantic. The industrialization of Asia (China in particular) has made the Asia - Europe and the transpacific connectors particularly important. Growth within the "BRIC" countries (Brazil, India and China) favors the emergence of a new connector in the Southern Hemisphere between the east coast of South America, the Cape of Good Hope and to Southeast Asia.
Transshipment Markets. They connect regional port systems to transoceanic and circum equatorial routes, mainly through hub-and-spoke services. The relay function between long distance shipping services performed by those markets is also significant. The most important are Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. They are referred as markets because the transshipment function can be substituted to another port. Therefore a group of ports in a transshipment market are "bidding" for port calls as this type of traffic is difficult to anchor. The development of circum equatorial routes is thus likely to expand the opportunities of transshipment, including interlining between these routes.