Empirical analysis of the container liner shipping network on the East-West corridor (1995–2011)

Nguyen Tran () and Hans-Dietrich Haasis

Netnomics, 2014, vol. 15, issue 3, 121-153

Abstract: The shipping network plays an important role in the operation of container liner shipping. It provides a system on which transportation activities take place. This article aims to study the topological structure of the shipping network on the East-West corridor from 1995 to 2011. The theoretical background is based on graph theory, statistical techniques, social network analysis, and transportation network structure. Data is deployed from the service information published in Containerisation International Yearbooks and processed by designated computer programs. The expansion of the shipping network to adapt to the growth of global trade is displayed by the increase of deployed fleet, the number of served ports and weekly calls. Major features of arcs on the network are identified in respect of nautical distance, travelling time and assortativity. Port strength on the network is evaluated on the basis of degree centrality with the majority of the largest degree ports located in East Asia. The power law distribution of port degree indicates the existence of many small degree ports and only a few high degree ones. Highly positive correlation coefficients between port degree and throughput express the causal link between them. The dynamics of regional networks is observed through network indicators. A salient trend is the de-concentration process happening in many regions during which secondary ports grown strongly and have lowered the centrality of bigger ones. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Keywords: Container liner shipping; Network analysis; Degree centrality; Network structure; Maritime transport geography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11066-014-9088-x (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:netnom:v:15:y:2014:i:3:p:121-153

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ry/journal/11066/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11066-014-9088-x

Access Statistics for this article

Netnomics is currently edited by Stefan Voß

More articles in Netnomics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().