The economics of containership route deployment

Abstract

Larger and faster containerships have cut back on the number of port calls, thereby enhancing demand for and cost of land-based feeder services to the ports. The case in Taiwan is no exception. However, this tendency becomes economical only when differences in operation efficiency and handling charges (among other things), between competing ports are observed. Other things being equal, the multi-port calls instead of single-port-call/inland-feeder services could still be economically feasible so far as the containerships' route deployment serving Taiwan is concerned. Hence, the proposed expansion of the container terminals at the Port of Keelung in N Taiwan could be justifiable.