Enhancing resilience through port coalitions in maritime freight networks

Wenjie Li, Ali Asadabadi and Elise Miller-Hooks

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2022, vol. 157, issue C, 1-23

Abstract: Reliable port services are key to maritime freight transport system performance. These systems are vulnerable to disasters of anthropogenic or natural cause, which can significantly impact port capacity, handling times and overall system performance. To improve resilience of individual ports, strategies involving capacity sharing and protective cross-port investments through coalition formation are proposed. This collaborative port protection and investment approach to improve individual and system-level port resilience is formulated as an Equilibrium Problem with Equilibrium Constraints. That is, the program is bi-level with multiple players in the upper level and a common liner shipping problem in the lower level. Its solution is obtained at a Nash equilibrium wherein no port stakeholder can achieve better performance by unilaterally changing its investment plan. A Stackelberg equilibrium between upper and lower levels infers that best investment decisions are made given competition between ports and the market’s response to improvements. The benefits of regional coalitions in this co-opetitive (competitive and collaborative) environment in terms of port and system resilience, port- and system-level demand fulfilment rates and return on investment are investigated from multiple perspectives, including the perspectives of shippers, port owners and the larger shipping network. With insights gained through study of the proposed coalition policies, this work aims to facilitate port authorities in making decisions on port capacity expansion, infrastructure investment and forming strategic partnerships. Shipping companies may also take into consideration the ability of a port to provide service under disruption events when choosing which ports to include in their service loops.

Keywords: Resilience; Maritime systems; EPEC; Shipping; Global supply chains; Port networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2022.01.015

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