Impacts of new routes and ports on spatial competition for containerized imports into the United States

Abstract

Major changes are occurring in the logistics of container shipping including growth in demands, increased ship size and development of new ports and routes to serve the US market. The Panama Canal is in the process of being expanded and potential exists for shipping through the Northwest Passage in addition to new ports being developed on the West Coasts of Canada and Mexico. All these alternatives are expected to compete with the US logistics system. The purpose of this paper is to analyse prospective impacts of these changes on the container flows for shipments to the US markets. A spatial network flow model of the logistics for containerized imports into the United States is developed. It includes ocean shipping in different size vessels operating as strings, port handling, congestion costs and rail shipping. The base model calibrates well with historical shipments through ports and the interior rail system. Then, we analyse impacts of new ports and routes on the US system.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge support from the US Army Corps of Engineer's Institute for Water Resources for support in our work on container shipments under the Navigational Economic Technologies programme.