Abstract
The purpose of this article is to offer a literature review on the development and classification of inland terminals, later defined as “dry ports”. The aim of the paper is to analyze the extant literature on dry ports focusing on their concept, classification, function and technological processes. The review offers an updated structured approach to what is currently defined as a dry port. To this end, a structured keyword search in major electronic databases has been conducted to find related material. As there are many different names indicating dry ports in European, South East Asian and North American countries, the following keywords were used: “dry port”, “inland terminal”, “freight village” and “interporto/i”. The search was conducted in respect of the article title and text, abstract and keywords. The results show that there is no unanimous consensus concerning cataloguing of terrestrial nodal facilities serving port gateways. “Dry ports” have emerged as fundamental elements of the integration between the sea “system” and the land network. The increased interest in the genesis and development of dry ports has been accompanied by an abundant contribution of the scientific community, originating a thriving literature, which, however, does not find a common denominator.
Highlights
Ports have always been a privileged gateway for commercial sea-trade
(46); only a few may be considered as review articles be classified as research or business articles
Considering that different languages lead to different terms indicating “dry port”, “inland terminal”, “freight village” and “interporto/i”, and that the concept underpinning these words has been better defined over the years, most of the selected papers (43) may be included in the field of search
Summary
Only once containers had been established significantly, did ports find themselves increasingly facing the issue of their relationship with their respective hinterlands Over time, concepts such as “integrated logistics” and “supply chain”, together with a growing understanding of environmental problems connected to the distribution chain, have strengthened this new approach. Introducing a neologism, the concept of “dry port” has paved its way, rising as a key element for the integration of sea “system” and dry land networks. It is a mere physical extension of the storage capacity of quays, but most importantly a tool by which it amplifies the dimension of the port, namely its “catchment area”. There seems to be no exact or at least univocal definition for an inland terminal [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]
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