Port rationalization and the evolution of regional port systems: the case of Norway

ABSTRACT

This paper explores container port system evolution and port choice from the perspective of a regional or secondary (feeder and short sea) system. Theory predicts that large-scale container port systems tend towards concentration, rationalizing the number of ports, followed by deconcentration. By contrast, regional port systems remain under-researched. Such systems tend to retain their large number of small ports, as the alternative would be serving their long coastlines, small islands and sparse populations by long overland routes or not at all. Norway is a classic feeder and short sea market with a long coastline and dispersed population served by many small ports. The methodology utilizes concentration analysis and semi-structured interviews to explore if the Norwegian system conforms to theories of port concentration and port choice, including issues of regional port governance. Findings show that the Norwegian system demonstrates the same process of concentration and then deconcentration as major port ranges. However, its number of ports has not been rationalized, suggesting that such regional systems may indeed evolve differently to major port ranges. Nevertheless, ongoing discussion of reform in Norway towards regional port governance, similar to other European countries, may eventually result in such rationalization.

KEYWORDS:

• Short sea shipping (SSS)
• port choice
• container port systems
• shipping lines
• feeder ports
• secondary ports
• regional ports

Acknowledgments

This paper has partly been written during research exchanges funded by the EU project EC-ChiNa Research Network on Integrated Container Supply Chains, acronym ENRICH, proposal number 612546 and grant agreement number PIRSES-GA-2013-(612546). The ENRICH project has had no involvement or influence on the research conducted and there has been no conflict of interest regarding the results presented. The authors want to thank Sivert Hovde for creating the map used in the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Notteboom, Ducruet, and de Langen (2016) for a collection of studies on competition and cooperation among seaports in national and regional ranges.

2. Monios (2017) identified an ageing fleet of small (sub-1,000 TEU) feeder vessels that is not being replaced by new orders, suggesting that feeder ports will be served by larger vessels in future.