The organisation of ports and the volume and type of cargo that each port handles are shaped by a set of factors that are either ‘internal’ or ‘external’ to the development of maritime transport systems (Figure 4.1).
The dominant influence is exerted by internal factors. At the core of the internal environment of a cargo port is the transported cargo; the port’s operation, sustainability, and growth prospects are defined and depend on it. Four other internal factors are decisive in shaping the structures and growth rates of ports (Figure 4.1).
- Trade: trade volume changes affect the cargo volume and type that ports have to handle.
- Structures of the production-transport-consumption process: These structures determine the transport volumes. A first dimension is the location of production. For example, China’s economic and industrial development in recent decades has catalyzed the development of ports – especially those serving containerised trade – and changed the philosophy regarding the servicing of international trade. A second dimension is the quantity of production in a given economy. This quantity contributes to the development of existing ports or the creation of new port facilities near the production areas, as there is a need to service the exports of the products produced and possibly import raw materials. A third dimension is the increased use of alternative sources of raw materials that affect the volume of trade that ports serve while at the same time causing changes, such as the need for handling (intermediate) products that serve modern production rules and the promotion of the goods produced for final consumption. The extensive use of containers leads ports to invest in container terminals and related services and change their organization to provide the appropriate infrastructure and superstructure to serve this mode of transport.
- Logistics services: the expanding use of supply chains and the integration of ports into such chains enables the development of value-added services and/or the attraction of companies to offer value-added services, helping to create a competitive advantage and expand the trade a port serves.
- The structures and growth rates of shipping and the broader transport systems. The size, technologies, and requirements of ships, the services offered, and the procedures employed by shipping companies, the maritime corridors they choose to carry out maritime trade, and the range of services they wish to offer, all shape the criteria to which ports respond. The corresponding characteristics of land-based transport linked to ports are also important.
Three external factors co-shape the context in which ports operate and develop:
- The prevailing culture as regards the organization of the economy (i.e., the perspective of the role of public and private sectors, economic (de)regulation, etc.), which is shaped at national, and/or local, and/or international levels – with the latter influence being increasingly present.
- Technology, the applications of which are changing the characteristics and operation of ships and transportation vessels of all kinds, as well as the provision of services for transporting goods and people.
- Port policy is shaped in a local, national, regional (e.g., European), or international (e.g., the International Maritime Organisation) context. Issues of planning and development (e.g., land area, activities, and use of available land), port ownership (e.g., public, private, mixed-use), governance (e.g., the role of the port operator, managers), but also port operational issues (operating regulations, waste management, mitigation of external impacts), are subjects of decisions by different policy-makers that determine the development of port systems and the prospects of individual ports.