THE GEOGRAPHY OF TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Ports are points of convergence between two domains of freight circulation (sometimes passengers); the land and maritime domains. The term port comes from the Latin portus, which means gate or gateway. Ports are bound by the need to serve ships, and so access to navigable water has been historically the most important site consideration. Before the industrial revolution, ships were the most efficient means of transporting goods, and thus port sites were frequently chosen at the head of water navigation, the most upstream site. Many major cities owed their early pre-eminence to this fact, such as London on the Thames, Montreal on the St. Lawrence River or Guangzhou on the Pearl River. Ship draft was small, so many sites were suitable. Sites on tidal waterways created a particular problem for shipping because of the twice-daily rise and fall of water levels at the berths, and by the Eighteenth Century the technology of enclosed docks, with lock gates was developed to mitigate this problem. Because ship transfers were slow, and vessels typically spent weeks in ports, a large number of berths were required. This frequently gave rise to the construction of piers and jetties to increase the number of berths per given length of shoreline.
As terminals, ports handle the largest amounts of freight, more than any other types of terminals combined. To handle this freight, port infrastructures jointly have to accommodate transshipment activities both on ships and inland and thus facilitate convergence between land transport and maritime systems. In many parts of the world, ports are the points of convergence from which inland transport systems, particularly rail, were laid. Considering the operational characteristics of maritime transportation, the location of ports is constrained to a limited array of sites, mostly defined by geography. Most ports, especially those that are ancient, owe their initial emergence to their site as the great majority of harbors are taking advantage of a natural coastline or a natural site along a river. Many port sites are constrained by:
There is also an array of problems related to port infrastructures. Ports along rivers are continuously facing dredging problems and the width of rivers is strongly limiting their capacity since it provides constraints to navigation. Rarely a port along a river has the capacity to handle to new generation of giant ships, namely Post Panamax containerships, which have put additional pressures on port infrastructures to accommodate the transshipment generated by these ships. Ports next to the sea are commonly facing a lateral spread of their infrastructures. Several ports have growth problems that force them to spread their infrastructures far from the original port sites. Since ports are generally old, and in several cases were responsible for urban growth, they are located nearby central areas. This is creating congestion problems where the transport network has the least capacity to be improved.
The city and the port are often competing for the same land, which can create priority problems (port versus waterfront development for instance). Ports thus have a complex set of relationships, often conflictual, with the cities they service, often a function of the port and city size. The pressure of many ports on their sites is even more demanding than those of airports because they have to be adjacent to deep water. Such sites are very limited, and may give rise to conflicts with the city at large that sees waterfront land as potential park space, or as environmentally sensitive. Many ports are now constrained by urban and environmental pressures, which did not exist when the existing facilities were developed.
The main function of a port is to supply services to freight (warehousing, transshipment, etc.) and ships (piers, refueling, repairs, etc.). Consequently, it is misleading to consider a port strictly as a maritime terminal since it acts concomitantly as a land terminal where inland traffic originates or ends. Ports are becoming increasingly regional in their dynamics, which represents a new development from their traditional local function, namely as industrial complexes. For instance, the port of Hong Kong owes its wealth to its natural site and its geographical position of a transit harbor for southern China. A similar function is assumed by Shanghai for central China with the Yangtze river system. Singapore, for its part, is been favored by its location at the outlet of the strategic Strait of Malacca and is therefore a point of convergence of Southeast Asian transportation. More than 90% if the traffic it handles is strictly transshipments. New York has traditionally acted as the gateway of the North American Midwest through the Hudson / Erie canal system, a function which Western European ports such as Rotterdam or Antwerp perform with their access to the Rhine system.
About commercial 4,600 ports are in operation worldwide, but only less than one hundred ports have a global importance. Maritime traffic thus has a high level of concentration in a limited number of large ports, a process mainly attributed constraints related to maritime access and infrastructure development. Major ports have established themselves as gateways of continental distribution systems and have access to high capacity inland freight distribution corridors, notably rail. Such a position is very difficult to challenge unless a port is facing acute congestion forcing maritime shipping companies to seek alternatives.
In terms of the freight they handle, ports can be classified in two categories; monofunctionnal ports and polyfunctionnal ports.
Monofunctionnal ports transit a limited array of commodities, most often dry or liquid bulks (raw materials). The oil ports of the Persian Gulf or the mineral ports of Australia, Africa and in some measure of Canada are monofunctional ports. They have specialized piers designed to handle specific commodities and where the flows a commonly outbound.
Polyfunctionnal ports are vast harbors where several transshipment and industrial activities are present. They have a variety of specialized and general cargo piers linked to a wide variety of modes that can include containers, bulk cargo or raw materials.
The gradual shift from conventional break-bulk terminals to container terminals since the early 1960s brought about a fundamental change in the function and layout of terminals. Containerized transportation has substantially changed port dynamics to favor the emergence of specialized container ports. Containerization has consequently become a fundamental function of global port operations and has substantially changed the structure and configuration of port terminals that tend to occupy more space.
Due to the growing level of complexity of port operations, public port authorities were created at the beginning of the 20th century. For instance, the London Port Authority, the world's first, was established in 1908 by consolidating all the existing harbor facilities. Such a management structure became a standard that was adapted to many other ports. For North America, in 1921, the States of New York and New Jersey created the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has become one of the world's most diversified port authority with a portfolio including port facilities, bridges, airports and public transit systems. Administratively, port authorities are regulating infrastructure investments, its organization and development and its relationships with customers using its services.
Port Authority. An entity of state or local government that owns, operates, or otherwise provides wharf, dock and other marine terminal investments at ports.
The main rationale behind the setting of many port authorities was their ability to manage more efficiently port facilities as a whole rather than privately owned and operated terminals. Since port facilities were becoming more complex and more capital intensive, it was perceived that public agencies would be better placed to raise investment capital and mitigate the risk of such investments. Port authorities tend to be vertically integrated entities as they are involved in most of the activities related to port operations, from the construction and maintenance of infrastructure to the marketing and management of port services. Yet, their activities were limited within their jurisdictions, an attribute that became increasingly at odds with the transformations of the maritime shipping industry through globalization.
In the past ports were dominantly managed in their entirety by port authorities that were selling transshipment and other port services. On some occasions, terminals were leased to private companies. This privatization marks a reversal in the trend of having ports has public entities since many became inefficient, unable to cope with market pressures (performance, reliability and quality of service) and provide adequate financing for infrastructure and equipment becoming increasingly capital intensive. As public agencies, many port authorities were seen by governments as a source of revenue and were mandated to perform various non-revenue generating community projects, or at least provide employment.
The emergence of specialized and capital intensive container terminals servicing global trade has created a new environment for the management of port terminals. A significant trend in port operations has been an increase in the role of private operators where major port holdings have emerged with the purpose to manage a wide array of terminals, the great majority of which are containerized.
Port holding. An entity, commonly private, that owns or lease port terminals in a variety of locations. It is also known as a port terminal operator.
A "terminalization" of ports is taking place where different terminals within the same port are owned (or leased) and operated by different operators. As of 2005, port holdings accounted for over 58% of container port capacity and 67% of global containerized throughput (Drewry, 2006). In an era characterized by lower levels of direct public involvement in the management of transport terminals and port privatization, specialized companies involved in the management of port terminals are finding opportunities. They thus tend to be horizontally integrated entities focusing on terminal operations in a variety of locations.
The main tool for global port operators to achieve control of port terminals has been through concession agreements. A concession agreement is a long-term lease of port facilities involving the requirement that the concessionaire undertakes capital investments to build, expand, or maintain the cargo-handling facilities, equipment, and infrastructure to satisfy a minimum level. A number of issues are involved in the decision of a terminal operator to invest in a particularly port, namely the transparency of the bidding process and the quality of infrastructures (port and inland). The range of port terminals controlled by port holdings covers several of the largest freight markets. As globalization permitted the emergence of large multinational corporations managing assets in a variety of locations, global port holdings are a similar trend concerning the management of port terminal assets.
The evolution of transport terminal development has been examined most extensively in port site studies. Port terminals and activities, as documented by Bird's Anyport, tend to expand away from their original sites towards locations offering better maritime and land access. The site of the port is thus the object of a process of valorization through capital investments in infrastructures, the convergence of inland and maritime transport networks with their flows as well as the complex management of the concerned supply chains. Port development can be perceived within a sequential perspective, where each phase builds upon the previous, from port cities of the 19th century to the emerging port logistics network of the 21st century.
Conventionally, port terminals where located close to city cores as many where the initial rationale for the existence of the city. The proximity to downtown areas also insured the availability of large pools of workers to perform the labor intensive transshipment activities that used to characterize port operations. At their peak in the early 1950sm ports such as London and New York each employed more than 50,000 dock workers. Over time, changes in ships and handling equipment gave rise to new site requirements. By the post World War II period a growing specialization of vessels emerged, especially the development of bulk carriers. These ships were the first to achieve significant economies of scale, and their size grew very quickly. For example, the world’s largest oil tanker in 1947 was only 27,000 dwt., by the mid 1970’s it was in excess of 500,000 dwt. There was thus a growing vessel specialization using semi-automated transshipment equipment and increase in size which resulted in new site requirements, especially the need for dock space and greater water depths.
The mechanization of cargo handling and the storage requirements because of greater vessel capacities have greatly extended the space demands for port activities. Many ports, such as Rotterdam and Antwerp are larger in area than the cities they serve, and even more space-intensive ports, such as Montreal, are in excess of 500 hectares in area. The expansion of Chinese ports, such as Shanghai, has required altogether the use of entirely new sites outside central areas. Further, growing ship sizes have implied several new constraints for port sites such as deeper waterways, larger terminal space, both for ship handling and warehousing, and more efficient inland road and rail access. Modern port infrastructures are often intensive in capital and several port authorities are struggling to keep up with large infrastructure investment requirements. However, the presence of infrastructures does not necessarily guarantee traffic as maritime companies can select the ports they service as business opportunities changes. Over this, three recent projects are particularly revealing:
The current phase underline that ports are going beyond their own facilities to help accommodate additional traffic and the complexity of freight distribution, namely by improving hinterland transportation. Port regionalization is such an outcome and indicates a higher level of integration between maritime and inland transport systems, particularly by using rail and barge transportation, which are less prone to congestion than road transportation. The development of global supply chains increased the pressure on maritime transport, port operations, and on inland freight distribution. Inland accessibility as such has become a cornerstone in port competitiveness. Port regionalization is characterized by strong functional interdependency and even joint development of a specific load centre and logistics platforms in the hinterland. This leads ultimately to the formation of a regional load centre network. Many factors favor the emergence of this phase, namely:
In 2008, about 530 million TEU were handled by container ports, with a notable growth in containers transshipped at intermediate locations as well as the repositioning of empty containers. An outcome has been the growing share of transshipments in regard to the totality of maritime containerized traffic, from around 11% in 1980 to about 28% in 2005. The number of times a container is handled at a port is also increasing, underlining the setting of complex containerized transport chains as well as the growing difficulties of transferring cargo into large containerships. The success of major container ports is jointly the outcome of a shift to containerized shipping in new industrializing regions (containerized commodity chains), the quality of their infrastructure and services and an efficient interface with inland transport systems.
An important emerging function for several container port terminals involves transshipments (ship-to-ship). For obvious reasons, it is impossible to connect directly all possible port pairs, so transshipment is required to insure connectivity within the global trading system. Maritime shipping companies also elect for transshipment as a way to use more rationally their networks. In a conventional pendulum container service, a maritime range such as the American East Coast or Western Europe involve several port calls. If the volume is not sufficient, this may impose additional costs for maritime companies that are facing the dilemma between market coverage and operational efficiency. This is particularly the case with the growing size of containerships that forces a lower number of port calls. By using an intermediate hub terminal in conjunction with short sea shipping services, it is possible to reduce the number of port calls and increase the throughput of the port calls left.
An intermediate hub (or transshipment hub) is a port terminal used for ship-to-ship operations within a maritime transport system. These operations do not take place directly, which requires the temporary storage of containers in the port's yard. The term offshore hub has often been used to characterize such locations but this definition is seen as inaccurate since many are not located offshore but at conventional port locations. The definition should thus reflect the function, not the setting of such terminals.
There are several patterns in which intermediate hubs can be inserted by connecting long distance and short distance (feeder) maritime services, by connecting different long distance services and by connecting services calling different ports along a similar maritime range. Intermediate hub terminals can thus become effective competitive tools since the frequency and possibly the timeliness of services can be improved. By using an intermediate hub terminal in conjunction with short sea shipping services, often organized as small pendulum services, it is possible to reduce the number of port calls and increase the throughput of the port calls left.
While in theory offshore hubs do not have an hinterland, but a significant foreland, the impact of feedering (mainly be short sea shipping) confers them a significant indirect hinterland. Feedering combines short sea and deep sea containerized shipping at a hub where traffic is redistributed. The usage of larger containerships has lead to the concentration of traffic at terminals able to accommodate them in terms of draft and transshipment capacity. Smaller ports, particularly those well connected to inland transport systems, become feeders through the use of short sea shipping. As the transshipment business remains a highly volatile business, offshore hubs might sooner or later show ambition to develop services that add value to the cargo instead of simply moving boxes between vessels. These ambitions could trigger the creation of logistics zones within or in the vicinity of the port area, in many cases connected to the status of Free Trade Zone.

Harbor Types
(Detailed PDF map)

Basic Constraints of Port Sites
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Number of Large and Medium Ports by Channel Depth
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Channel Depth at Selected North American Ports
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Dredging Ship at the Port of Zeebrugge, Belgium
(Google Earth Placemark)
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Post Panamax Containership at the Port of Le Havre
(Google Earth Placemark)
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Yantian Container Port, Pear River Delta, China
(Google Earth
Placemark)

Container Straddler, Port of Gothenburg, Sweden
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Throughput of the World’s Major Ports, 2006

Characteristics of Conventional Break-bulk Terminals versus Container
Terminals

Technical Changes in Container Port Facilities

Traffic at Container Ports of More than 1 million TEU, 2007
(Detailed PDF map)

Container Ports of the Americas, 2008
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World Top 20 Container Ports, 2007

Rank / Size of the 50 Largest Container Ports, 1980-2008
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Container Traffic of the 20 Most Important Ports, 1985-2005

Configuration of a Maritime Container Terminal
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A Multi-Layer Approach to Port Dynamics
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Evolution of the Port of Rotterdam, 1400-2030

The Evolution of a Port (The Anyport Model)

The Spatial Development of a Port System

The Main Activities of Landlord Port Authorities

Vertical and Horizontal Integration in Port Development
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Global Port Terminal Ownership, 2001

Container Terminals of the World's Four Major Port Holdings, 2009
(Detailed PDF map)

Forms of Port Terminal Privatization

Shifts in Containerized Maritime Transshipments
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Ports of Los Angeles / Long Beach, Inland Flows
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Transshipment Requirements for Liner Shipping Connections
between Pairs of Countries, 2009
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Number of Transfers per Container between Ship and Shore

The Advantages of Intermediate Hub Terminals

World’s Main Intermediate Hubs, 2007