Enrico Musso, Claudio Ferrari, Marco Benacchio

Port terminal sizing and its consequences on maritime transport efficiency

Abstract
Literature has always stressed how port sizing and the times and standards of service represent a main element in the choice of port. Particularly, the significant fixed costs affecting maritime vectors cause high hourly cost of time spent by ships for loading/unloading operations; as a consequence, each factor implying an increase of the delay times causes a subsequent growth of the average cost per journey. This implies a demand for oversized port terminals, at least concerning the berths, in order to reduce queuing and load/unload times. The purpose of the paper is to establish the equilibrium point beyond which the marginal investment on terminals becomes economically inefficient with regard to the higher ship cost without the investment. An empirical survey concerning Italian container terminals will support the theoretical reflection.
Index
1.	Background
2.	Theoretical framework
3.	Some empirical evidence
4.	Concluding remarks
5.	References