Claudio Ferrari

Environmental sustainability in seaports: a framework for successful innovation

Environmental sustainability in the port industry is of growing concern for port authorities, policy makers, port users and local communities. Innovation can provide a solution to the main environmental issues, but often meets resistance. While certain types of technological or organisational innovation can be satisfactorily analysed using closed system theories, in the case of seaports and in particular in the area of environmental sustainability, more advanced conceptual frameworks have to be considered. These frameworks need to be able to account for the multiple stakeholder nature of the port industry and of the network and vertical interactions that environmental sustainability calls for. This article investigates successful innovations improving environmental sustainability of seaports. The proposed framework builds in part on research concepts developed in the InnoSuTra EU FP7 project. From a methodological perspective, this article develops a method for quantifying the degree of success of innovation with respect to a set of specific objectives. Several case studies are used to test the framework against real innovation examples, such as onshore power supply, or alternative fuels. In this article, we argue that only those innovations that fit dynamically port actors’ demands and the port institutional environment stand a chance to succeed.

Port Investment: Profitability, Economic Impact and Financing

Port investment is a key issue in modern port economics with respect to planning port development, financing and assessing the return on investment. This chapter addresses some of the features related to port investment, starting from the evaluation of the main paradigms that characterize the port industry from a global point of view, and focusing on the relations, synergies and conflicts between the numerous stakeholders actually involved. Profitability, economic impact and financing are seen as the most critical nodes in the complex chain of port investment decisions.The chapter builds up a comprehensive scenario where single aspects and variables related to port investments can fit into a general scheme of interrelations that identifies feasible outcomes. The foreseeable outputs in terms of demand and supply provide insights for possible incentives to efficiency to be improved upon by decision-makers at different levels, promoting the reduction of conflicts and a synergy of interests.

Italian ports: towards a new governance?

The adoption in 1994 of the law n. 84 introducing the landlord port model marked the starting point of a prime period for the Italian port industry. It contributed to the national port industry renaissance: Italian ports became again the leaders in the Mediterranean basin, both as gateway ports and as transhipment ports. Looking back to its 15 years of enforcement, critical aspects and weaknesses have been observed. The incentive to reflect on the governance structure of ports and on the changes affecting the whole logistics transport chain is driven by the relative and absolute loss of position of Italian ports with respect to their competitors of the North as well as of the South European range (and the ports of Northern Africa which are expected to compete fiercely in the coming future). Considering only the container traffic, from 2003 to 2008 the market share of Italian ports decreased from 20.7% to 15.7% in favor of its main European competitors. The loss of attractiveness of Italian harbors is a clear symptom of the several difficulties national ports face in dealing with the rapid changes affecting the port industry. This paper discusses the bill presented by the Italian Government concerning the ports governance reform.

Managing port concessions: evidence from Italy

With the adoption of the landlord port model, the assignment of port areas to private operators has become a key point for the efficient management of port spaces as well as of port activities themselves. The paper investigates the procedural process that leads to the assignment of port concessions in Italy. The survey is conducted on a sample of ports and covers the last decade, focusing on some relevant decision-making and managerial variables (concession type and duration, criteria for the determination of fees, etc.). Despite the relatively small size of the sample, it highlights the different policies adopted by the Port Authorities (PAs) in order to attract private operators or enhance the development of port infrastructure. Moreover, the paper discusses how concession fees influence the total earnings of PAs and the extent to which they may be used in pursuit of ports’ economic and social goals.

Network economies in liner shipping: the role of home markets

This paper deals with the measurement of the network complexity of some selected shipping groups, also identifying the contribution of co-operative agreements among carriers. The empirical investigation is focused on: (i) the analysis of the distribution of the carrying capacity per range; and (ii) the comparison of that capacity with the throughput handled in the port facilities of the group. These variables are interpreted in the light of the impact that alliances have on the geographical wideness of the services supplied by each partner. This factor also allows to depict how the cultural and political origin of shipping lines affects the decision of joining an alliance and the outcomes deriving from such co-operation.

Determinants of slow steaming and implications on service patterns

The research focuses on the impact of the shipping strategy to decrease the commercial speed of container vessels, in order to reduce the bunker costs, on current service patterns. In this regard, the study also hypothesizes potential development trends in the near future. The reduction of the commercial speed, commonly referred to as “slow steaming,” has been introduced to mitigate the negative effects of the recent economic crisis by cutting navigation costs and reducing the capacity supplied in order to assure a more efficient fleet deployment. Nowadays, this practice provokes a strong impact on maritime services and inter-port competition, as it leads to differentiate the offer of shipping services, combining fast and direct services among main hubs and cheaper and slower services also calling on small ports. The paper addresses the impact of slow steaming in the major shipping services and discusses the effects on service patterns between Asia and Europe, bringing practical insights for ocean carriers and ports.

Measuring the scope of inter-firm agreements in the container shipping industry: an empirical assessment

In container shipping industry inter-firm agreements are becoming progressively popular as ship-owners share their slot capacity with commercial partners in order to have fully loaded container ships and reduce financial risk. This manuscript focuses on the cooperative agreements among shipping firms, i.e., vessel sharing and slot charter agreements within consortia and strategic alliances. Through a quantitative approach based on network and OLS regression analysis, we scrutinise the propensity to cooperate, the geographic extent and ‘leveraging effect’ generated by this commercial practise on the container-shipping industry. Results show that carriers, usually regarded as independent, are instead fairly cooperative, especially when involved in trade lanes originating from the Far East. Finally, we show that carriers increase their commercial objectives by leveraging the operated fleet capacity. We conclude with some implications for managers and practitioners as well as a discussion on limitations and future extensions of this study.

Emission savings through a re-scheduling of maritime services: possible implications for the Mediterranean ports

The major aim of the paper is to analyse how growing awareness of environmental impact determined by trade activities can influence maritime transport and how it can facilitate changes in the current structure of maritime routes. In particular, the study compares the emissions concerning two alternatives in current maritime routes to highlight how possible incentives for emission reduction applied to maritime transport could impact the route choice. The analysis focuses on the trade routes from the Far East and South America towards Europe and it compares the emissions in two alternative scenarios: direct services calling at a North European port and shipping services calling at a Mediterranean port. In the latter scenario a significant role could be played by the North-African ports, whose development represents possible transhipment calls for the international shipping trades, mainly on the Europe-Far East route. In this sense they may act as competitors of the North European ports: their favourable geographic position allows for a considerable reduction in nautical distances with an immediate impact on the maritime transport emissions. To analyse the differences of emission impacts, this paper uses some particular statistical tools based on scientific literature and some instruments related to previous analysis in similar fields. The data used in the paper have been collected directly from shipping operators, terminal operators and some specialist databases. The paper is structured in 5 sections. After a brief introduction about transport and the environment (Section 1), Section 2 provides a review of some general methods to calculate the environmental cost of maritime transport, while Section 3 analyses the current trade route system and which ports can have an influence on changing the maritime patterns. Section 4 is focused on the analysis and comparison of the maritime routes alternatives, while Section 5 draws some conclusions and remarks for further analysis.

Addressing special challenges in maritime and port logistics

1. Rationale for the special issue The Annual Conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME 2013) took place from 3 to 5 July 2013. Co-organized by Kedge Business School (France), University of Genoa (Italy), University of Naples ‘Parthenope’ (Italy) and IFSTTAR (Paris), after two editions on other continents (IAME 2011 Santiago de Chile and IAME 2012 Taipei), it was held for the first time in the French port-city of Marseille. The Conference focused on the main challenges surrounding shipping markets and ports and provided a unique setting for academics, industry practitioners and policy makers to share views on critical issues under the general theme ‘Managing complexity in shipping and port markets: firms’ business models, co-opetitive games and innovative public-private interactions’. The event attracted the interest of many scholars from around the world, covering topics such as port and shipping economics, logistics, environmental protection, shipping finance and maritime policies. During Day 1, highlights were the attendance and presentations during the opening ceremony of keynote speakers: Dr. Jan Hoffman (Chief, Trade Facilitation Section UNCTAD), Mr. Francis Vallat (President, French Maritime Cluster & European Network of Maritime Clusters) and Mr. Sartini (Vice President Executive, CMA-CGM). Moreover, in the evening, an exciting round table took place around the theme ‘Managing complexity in the cruise industry: Strategies and business models’. This round table, chaired by Dr. Assunta Di Vaio (University of Naples ‘Parthenope’) and moderated by Mr. Masucci (Vice President, Italian Maritime Cluster), included distinguished panelists such as Mr. Eschena (MSC Cruise France), Mr. Pourbaix (Costa Crociere) and Dr. Pallis (MedCruise), who debated on cutting-edge cruise related topics, e.g., mergers and acquisitions, internationalization strategies and market concentration. Overall, more than 320 abstracts were received, 276 full papers were submitted and 174 were finally selected and presented during the three days. The Conference showcased a large number of high-quality papers on emerging and contemporary challenges. After a careful and strict evaluation, the editorial team has selected five papers for this Special Issue of Maritime Policy & Management, presenting remarkable research outcomes. The selected manuscripts are developed across three main themes which make up the backbone of the special issue. A first widely debated topic is related to port governance and its impact on efficiency and competitiveness. Since the 1980s, many studies addressed the evolving institutional framework in seaports with alternative governance mechanisms, new labor regimes and different ownership patterns. Notably, this process deeply transformed the port governance schemes in many developing countries, e.g., China, India, Philippines, Taiwan,

Efficiency and Productivity Growth in a Sample of Italian Container Terminals

In this study we estimate a production frontier for a sample of Italian container terminals observed over the period 2001-2008 in order to assess the pattern of Total Factor Productivity (TFP). Estimates of different stochastic frontier models suggest the existence of a modest but positive TFP growth rate over the period 2001-07 and an abrupt fall in TFP in 2008, which probably reflects the onset of the 2008-9 world recession. We also find that scale economies and technical change have positively contributed to TFP growth over the sample period ; in turn, all models find a decline in technical efficiency. Finally, the different stochastic frontier methods considered in this paper give a broadly consistent picture of the productivity and efficiency developments that have occurred in this sample.