The European Port Industry: An Analysis of its Economic Efficiency

Because of their critical strategic role, ports have traditionally been subject to some form of government control even if the legal form and intensity of this control have varied across countries. The member countries of the European Union have not been different from the rest of the world in this respect. A main difference however is the recurrent effort to integrate, in a coordinated way, the port sector in a trans-European transport network through adoption of a common legal framework. In this context, if the goal of the reforms is to ensure that port networks, integrated in combined transport networks, become competitors of the road network, the concept of port efficiency becomes central. This paper provides an overview of the evolution of European Port Legislation and shows how comparative economic measures can be used to highlight the scope for port efficiency improvements, essential to allow short sea shipping transport to compete with road transport in Europe. This paper is also the first effort to estimate technical efficiency of European Port Authorities. The average port efficiency in 2002 was estimated to be about 60%, denoting that ports could have handled 40% more traffic with the same resources.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/14792931
• Authors:
  • Trujillo, Lourdes
  • Tovar, Beatriz
• Publication Date: 2007-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 148-171
• Serial:
  • Maritime Economics & Logistics
  • Volume: 9
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
  • ISSN: 1388-1973
  • EISSN: 1476-0592
  • Serial URL: http://link.springer.com/journal/41278

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Economic efficiency; Economic factors; Network analysis (Planning); Port traffic; Ports; Short sea shipping
• Geographic Terms: European Union countries
• Subject Areas: Economics; Marine Transportation; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01055346
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 23 2007 1:00PM