Identifying Maritime Ports’ Investment Drivers: The Case of French Local and Regional Ports

Abstract

Ports play an essential role in the production and distribution processes of companies, as well as in the organizations set up by logistics and transportation service providers. But ports are also likely to have to contribute to the development of the territories they are part of. This paper aims at knowing more about how this double challenge impacts the investments made by local and regional ports. To this end, seventeen individual websites and three collective websites of French ports have been surveyed. Results show that the sampled ports and groups of ports have for the most part properly adjusted both to the constraints posed by the public authorities and to the needs and expectations of their current and potential customers.