Urban road congestion, capacity expansion and port competition: empirical analysis of US container ports

Abstract

In this study, we empirically investigate the impacts of urban road congestion and road capacity expansion on the competition between major container ports in the US. We find that more delays on urban roads may cause shippers to switch to competing rival ports: a 1% increase in road congestion delays around the port is associated with a 0.90–2.48% decrease in the port's container throughput but a 0.62–1.69% increase in the rival port's throughput. Adding local roads tends to benefit the port and harm its rival (in terms of throughput) by reducing road congestion. However, the overall impact of road provision on ports’ throughput varies among the sample ports, as road capacity expansion may affect ports’ output through channels other than road congestion delays.