Inland Terminals Research Articles

Feasibility of establishment of “Dry Ports” in the developing countries—the case of Iran

The main purpose of this research is to evaluate potential benefits and impacts of Dry ports for different kinds of stakeholders, which may lead to establish “Dry ports”. Dry ports are intermodal inland terminals which have been established in several countries. In this paper, we designed a methodological approach with these steps: a) Comprehensive literature review, b) Definition of “Base Case” for Dry ports with required features, c) Comparative study and analysis, d) Questionnaires, e) Analysis of answered questionnaires, and f) SWOT matrix. By means of this framework, dry ports, intermodal transportation and containerization are investigated through experts’ point of views. Iran is chosen as a case study, as a developing country. This study is based upon yearly information and statistics of the country.

Understanding hinterland service integration by shipping lines and terminal operators: a theoretical and empirical analysis

In the present competitive environment of ports, the key determinant in port competition is the ability of a port to be integrated into the local maritime and hinterland transportation chain. Creating effective integrated hinterland chains requires the coordination of several actors both in port and the hinterland. By making use of insights from Transaction Cost Economics and Resource-based View, the paper helps to understand why and how shipping lines and terminal operating companies enlarge their scope in intermodal transport and in inland terminals. The paper discusses a number of cases from the Hamburg–Le Havre range, where shipping lines and terminal operating companies have changed their scope of activities in ports and hinterland networks. After the theoretical and empirical analysis the papers draws conclusions on the explanatory power of the theories in understanding hinterland service integration by shipping lines and terminal operators.

Functions and actors of inland ports: European and North American dynamics

The emergence of inland ports took place in several regions around the world, notably where the growth of inland freight distribution required a massification of flows. Yet, there is no definitive consensus about how such inland facilities should be labeled, with terms such as dry ports being advocated. It is suggested in the paper that the term inland port is a more appropriate construct since it considers terminal activities as well as the crucial logistics activities taking place in co-location or in proximity of inland terminals. This perspective requires the investigation of how transport and supply chain functions and the various actors involved in their setting and operations are taking shape in inland ports. Case studies pertaining to European and North American inland ports are presented. Although inland ports are planned, set and operated by a wide variety of actors, ranging from public to private interests, transport and supply chain functions tend to label them as satellite terminals, load centers or transmodal centers.

Network analysis of container barge transport in the port of Antwerp by means of simulation

Inland navigation plays an important role in the hinterland access of the port of Antwerp. In this paper alternative bundling strategies for container barge transport in the port of Antwerp are analyzed. Four alternative hub scenarios are simulated and compared with the current situation with respect to the operational characteristics of the network. Discrete event simulation is used to analyze the impact on waiting times and capacity utilization at potential hubs and at sea terminals. The hub scenarios under investigation are the organization of an intermodal barge hub on the right river bank, an intermodal hub on the left river bank, a first multihub scenario with a local collection/distribution network and a potentially improved multihub scenario taking into account the specific structure of the port of Antwerp. The second multihub scenario offers most opportunities for reducing the turnaround time of all inland terminals. All hub scenarios lead to important efficiency improvements in the handling of barges at sea terminals.

Trends in Global Port Operations and Their Influence on Port Labor

The port industry has undergone substantial structural changes during the past 15 years. The emergence of global terminal operators, global oligopolistic market consolidation, vertical and horizontal integration of liner shipping, and the new structure of global production networks in relation to emerging technologies are only a few of the factors that have fundamentally influenced port labor. Ports are no longer isolated functional nodes of the transportation chain, but are a fundamental component of a seamless supply chain, working along with satellite and inland terminals. At the same time, marine terminals sometimes function as extended warehouses, providing flexible virtual inventory. These developments have created substantial challenges to port labor, including the need for upgraded working skills, enhanced productivity, and the ability to adopt flexible working conditions. Unionized port labor has been traditionally highly inflexible in changing attitudes and adapting to new port work practices. In contrast, the explosion of port service demand in emerging economies, particularly in East Asia, was followed by an unprecedented increase in port productivity, coupled by flexibility in port working practices that cannot be accepted by unionized port labor in the United States and Europe. This paper examines some of the current challenges and implications for the U.S. East Coast port labor force—the International Longshoremen's Association—due to global developments in international trade and global port operations. It proposes that future research incorporate a broad range of disciplines in order to understand the competitive environment facing longshoremen better.

Foreland-based regionalization: Integrating intermediate hubs with port hinterlands

Development and changes in port hinterlands have received considerable attention as they represent substantial opportunities to improve the efficiency of global freight distributions. Port regionalization was a concept brought forward by Notteboom and Rodrigue (2005) to articulate the emerging port hinterland dynamics in light of containerization, supply chain management and the setting of inland terminals. This paper expands this concept by focusing on a particular dimension of the regionalization paradigm concerning the evolving role of intermediate hubs. It is argued that, in addition to hinterland-based regionalization, there is also a foreland-based regionalization where intermediate hubs capture a maritime hinterland. This intensity and viability of processes of foreland-based regionalization depend on multiple geographical, technical and market-related factors, and this paper identifies and analyzes these underlying parameters. By doing so, it assesses whether foreland-based regionalization is simply a transitional phase in port development or, alternatively, represents emerging functional characteristics of contemporary freight distributions.

Intermodalitŕ e interportualitŕ nel sistema di trasporto merci in Italia

- Europe is struggling to avoid losing position on international markets and in other policies, long, points on an integrated transport policy, namely for a transport network that sees the connection between its various functional components. Italy is part of production networks in Europe and is necessarily part of the process of building an integrated transport system which is based on intermodality. The paper examines the problems that exist in Italy as regards the implementation of an organic transport policy. Under consideration is the structure of the Italian inland terminals, and more, are the deficiencies in the policy for the intermodality. Severe criticism is moved to the choices made in the field of high speed, because the choices made so far do not address the problem of intermodal freight.

The terminalization of supply chains: reassessing the role of terminals in port/hinterland logistical relationships

The paper discusses how logistics service providers are using terminals in their supply chains. It argues that an increasing ‘terminalization’ of supply chains is unfolding, whereby seaport and inland terminals are taking up a more active role in supply chains by increasingly confronting market players with operational considerations such as imposing berthing windows, dwell time charges, truck slots, all this to increase throughput, optimize terminal capacity and make the best use of available land. With the development of inland terminals, a new dimension is being added: logistics players are now making best use of the free time available in seaports terminals and inland terminals, thereby optimizing the terminal buffer function. As a result, transport terminals are achieving an additional level of integration within supply chains that goes beyond their conventional transshipment role. Given increasing levels of vertical integration in the market and an increasing pressure on port capacity, a further terminalization of supply chains is likely to occur, which will strengthen the active role of terminals in logistics.

Terminals and the Competitiveness of Container Barge Transport

Low-cost operations have traditionally formed the competitive edge of inland shipping. Because of the exploitation of these comparative advantages, the barge sector has succeeded in gaining a substantial market share in container transport. The cost and quality performance of terminals play a major role in improving the competitiveness of container barge transport. Terminal handling is a major cost frontier because the share of terminal costs in the total chain of costs of barge transport is relatively large. The handling of barges in seaports is especially expensive. To enable new types of cost-efficient barge services, additional functions for terminals come into play (i.e., there is a new challenge for the functional performance of barge inland terminals). This paper explores the future requirements and opportunities of barge terminals to improve further the competitiveness of container barge transport. The relationship between barge network design and terminal design is relevant. Based on a review of the major cost drivers in barge handling and the role of terminals in barge service networks, new challenges for container barge handling and possible solutions are discussed. A major conclusion is that a differentiated approach is needed in developing new terminal and handling concepts. The major drivers for this differentiated approach are the container volumes to be handled and the position of the terminal in the network.

On the Integration of Logistics Activities by Shipping Lines: The Case of East-Asia

In the 1990s, following the challenges imposed by globalisation, the liner shipping industry experienced profound changes, leading major carriers to create ad-hoc logistics business-units. Nevertheless the vertical integration of shipping lines along the transport chain faced important entry barriers in various regions.This paper aims at analysing the impact of such barriers on carriers’ pathways of expansion in the logistics business. It mainly focuses on the East-Asian market, as a relevant empirical case in which important institutional and socio-political obstacles are still in force .Main results disclose sui-generis paths of expansion achieved by major carriers, in contrast with linear constructs of time and space proposed by classical TNC theories. In such respect, port operations reveal to be the most critical stage of the chain. The ‘sidestep’ of the port phase, leading to investments in other on-shore activities (warehousing, inland terminals, etc.) as well as the implementation of aggressive financial campaigns (acquisitions and takeovers), reveal the unfaltering will of top shipping lines: the quick achievement of a successful vertical and horizontal expansion despite environmental obstacles.

Network dynamics in container transport by barge

In a time span of twenty years, container transport by barge has acquired a significant share in the hinterland modal split for containers of the load centres Rotterdam and Antwerp. In other European load centres, barge container transport as yet plays a modest role, but the interest in the barge option is growing. The growth in container volumes by barge and the increase of the number of seaports and inland terminals involved go hand in hand with fundamental spatial developments in the European inland terminal network.This paper addresses the organisational changes in the European barging industry that have taken place in the last twenty years and its impact on the spatial dynamics in the European container barge network. The paper analyses structural changes in liner service schedules by barge and the changing functional interdependencies between inland terminals in the network and organizational changes in the industry. The paper will conclude by discussing future perspectives for the spatial development of the barging network.

Automated shunting of rail container wagons in ports and terminal areas

The development of intermodal container transport is hampered in part by the cost associated with the shunting of trains in marshalling yards, inland and port railway terminals. Many new technologies have been developed in the past decade, but have still not been applied because of high capital investment costs, lack of sufficient market demand and uncertain rates of return. The key for increasing the competitiveness of intermodal container transport by rail is the operation of heavy haul container trains between port and inland railway terminals more frequently with fast, flexible and automatic transhipment, shunting and coupling of container wagons. The operation of self-driven railcars equipped with automatic centre coupling on terminal tracks, which can also be train-hauled on conventional hinterland railway lines, would enable a reduction of shunting and transhipment time and costs in intermodal container terminals by more than 30%.

Wie verankern sich Häfen im Raum?

Drawing on the examples of the seaport of Rotterdam and the International Airport Schiphol, Anton Kreukels, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Utrecht, points out three main issues concerning the relationship of ports and city-regions: (1) Strategic decisions affecting seaports as well as airports are no longer dominated by local actors but related to national and international levels. (2) Increasingly the hub-and-spoke-system, a well-known phenomenon in air traffic networks, is also manifest with regard to seaports. This results in a network with other—often lower ranking—seaports by feeder transport, and in a network with inland terminals cooperating with international seaports like Rotterdam and enabling efficient and reliable container transshipment. (3) Spatial planners have not yet adjusted their planning procedures to this reality of national- and international-based decision-making and hierarchical-organized logistics infrastructures.

Rural Inland Waterways Economic Impact Kit: A Synopsis

The results of a project whose primary objective was the development of a PC-based kit that gives users the ability to perform an assessment of the economic impacts of existing rural inland waterway ports and terminals are reported. The kit’s design follows a step-by-step procedure that focuses on the economic impacts of cargo flows, port users’ industries, and capital expenditures through the port or terminal linkages to regional industrial structures and transportation systems. The kit is interactive, guiding users through the impact analysis, and allows the users to input data and modify the model’s data while maintaining a consistent approach throughout the analysis. The major elements of the kit are summarized, and in particular the derivation of the kit’s input-output model and major issues that had to be resolved in constructing the kit are focused on.

Methodological solutions for increased efficiency of modelling and simulation of seaports and inland freight terminals

The paper outlines the results of research aimed at developing an efficient simulation modelling capability for seaports and inland freight terminals. By providing the domain-oriented process of simulation modelling with a uniform and coherent methodological basis and integrating it with artificial intelligence concepts, it was possible to construct a powerful tool—Transnode. This is a decision-support expert system which enables efficient and fast modelling and simulation of any seaport or inland freight terminal, or a group of terminals, large or small, multipurpose or specialized, at optional scale. It produces simulation results which enable a comprehensive analysis of the port or inland terminal to be made as an element of the total transportation framework. Both methodological aspects of the developed solutions and practical features of the Transnode system are discussed in the paper.

Simulation methodology for intermodal freight transportation terminals

This paper presents the issue of general methodology for modeling and simulation of seaport and inland terminals in intermodal freight transportation systems. The report documents a phase of the on-going more comprehensive effort aimed at developing a generalized modeling capability to provide strategic and tactical decision support for transportation logistics and intermodal terminals. By providing the object-oriented process of simula tion modeling with the coherent and uniform methodo logical basis, it was possible to construct a practical tool "TRANSNODE," The Simulator of Intermodal Transportation Terminals which allows one to model and simulate any transportation terminal, or a group of interconnected terminals, large or small, multipurpose or specialized, at optional scale. Knowledge-base and artificial intelligence concepts were incorporated in the simulator. Different from traditional simulation modeling, which combines data, knowledge and control program ming, the data-driven simulation modeling approach of the TRANSNODE system treats data and control logic as distinct parts. The resulting model is a generic simulator which can be used in many different application scenarios without requiring user simulation knowledge to modify the program. The only thing the user must do is supply the input data in the specified format through data files. Different terminal configura tions can be simulated merely by changing the input data. The developed technology is expected to be used by the industry for supporting their strategic and tactical decisions, by engineering firms in evaluating the design of their client facilities, their policies, and by the universities and research institutes in supporting and furthering their research.

Ships, ports and developing countries

From being largely uniform in character 20 yr ago, cargo handling technology has become varied with specialised, often larger vessels in many trades. Maritime transport through its impact on the port can have a profound influence on the spatial aspects of development. Investment costs for the new technology are high and successive improvements result in more rigorous location selection processes and increasing concentration of activity. Choice of technology becomes a critical issue and should be influenced by considerations of timing, spatial impact, appropriateness and overall development benefits. Greater dispersion may be achieved by the development of inland terminals or the adoption of more flexible technologies such as that offered by the barge carrying ship.