Impact of shipping alliances on the competitiveness of the top busiest ports: port of Antwerp, port of Hamburg and port of Rotterdam

• Main Author: Foo, Li Xuan
• Other Authors: Chiu Sai Hoi, Benson
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/67174
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The past 20 years witnessed greater cooperation between container shipping companies in the form of shipping alliances. These changes in the container shipping landscape has implications on the container handling business. This paper aims to bridge two research gaps that arises from this evolution. Firstly, previous researches tend to establish the attractiveness of the port from the perspective of shippers, freight forwarders and individual liners, rather than from the perspective of shipping alliances. Secondly, these past researches attempted to establish port choice criteria in order to access the attractiveness, but not competitiveness, of the ports. Overall, there is a lack of research that access the impact of shipping alliance on the competitiveness of the top busiest ports. This report focuses on the top 3 Northern European ports, namely, port of Antwerp, Hamburg and Rotterdam. To access the level of competitiveness of each port, primary data, along with the Diamond Model, was utilised. Primary data was also used to establish the importance of port choice factors. The overall analysis revealed that the Port of Rotterdam is the most competitive in North Europe, followed by Port of Hamburg and lastly, the Port of Antwerp. However, this situation may change in the future if port of Hamburg does not react appropriately to cater to shipping alliances. This paper hopes to provide better understanding on the factors valued by shipping alliances and how aspiring hub ports can adapt and improve themselves to remain competitive.