Title: Assessing the impact of containership size on port demand and infrastructure development: a case study of the Busan hub port
Authors: Gun-Woo Lee; Chan-Young Jun; Hokey Min; Min-Kyu Lee
Addresses: Department of Global Logistics, Chung Ang University, Seoul, South Korea ' Port Research Division, Korea Maritime Institute, 26, Haeyang-ro 301beon-gil, Yeongdo-gu, Busan, 606-080, South Korea ' Department of Management, BAA 3008C, College of Business, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, 43403, Ohio, USA ' Graduate School of Management of Technology Pukyong National University, Busan, South Korea
Abstract: In parallel with the continuous growth of international trade, the size of containerships has grown rapidly over the last several decades. The rationale being that the larger the capacity of a containership, the lower the shipping cost per TEU and the greater the shipping volume it can handle. The increased use of larger containerships, however, causes serious concerns for many ports around the world, since the existing port infrastructure and shipping network configurations are not designed to handle mega-containerships such as post-Panamax containerships. One of those concerns includes the vicious circle of never-ending port capacity expansion following the vessel size arms race. To ease such concern, the port authority should develop wise port development and reconfiguration strategies, which can accommodate the need for larger vessels and subsequently increase port revenue while minimising the financial burden associated with port development and reconfiguration. With this in mind, we examined whether the port's ability to handle larger containerships had any impact on its attractiveness for inducing greater demand based on the case study of the Busan hub port in Korea.
Keywords: maritime logistics; port demand management; stochastic model; case study.
DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2020.109653
International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2020 Vol.37 No.1, pp.55 - 78
Received: 10 Feb 2018
Accepted: 01 Nov 2018
Published online: 18 Sep 2020 *