The Geography of Transport Systems

The rapid diffusion of e-commerce has resulted in the setting of entirely new specialized distribution facilities. Their footprint is becoming impressive. E-Commerce Facilities Operated by Amazon in the United States, 2018

I am quoted in an interview from the New York Times about the development of large airport infrastructures in China.  

Some of the views I expressed about digitalization in ports and maritime shipping at TOC Panama are resumed in this piece. Although digitalization is expected to provide notable benefits, there is some unintended consequences that are worth considering. https://theloadstar.co.uk/downside-carriers-terminals-digital-supply-chain/

I updated the chart depicting the evolution of the multiplier effect between GDP growth and TEU growth. Since the 1990s, the multiplier effect has been declining, particularly since 2009. In recent years, the multiplier has dropped below 1, implying that 1% if GDP growth would be associated with 1% in

The Inter-American Development Bank recently released a report titled “Short Sea Shipping Network and Finance Model for the Caribbean“. While I took part in this project and undertook a good share of the background work, field work in Guyana, and data analysis and interpretation, credits are attributed to the commissioning

Updated an existing page with the 2015 container port traffic figures I collected and maintained in my global container ports database. This database contains information about 600 individual ports. Those depicted on the map have a traffic of above 500,000 TEU, which includes 196 ports. World’s Major Container Ports, 2015

Added a new page where the growing complexity of location factors in manufacturing and freight distribution are discussed. Ports and Economic Location Factors

A discussion paper I provided for the OECD roundtable about “Balancing Efficiency and Resilience in Multimodal Supply Chains” (#171) has been released. It can be downloaded here: Efficiency and Sustainability in Multimodal Supply Chains All the papers and video presentations of the roundtable are available here: Resilience Roundtable

Currently compiling information about automated terminals. Terminal automation is an ongoing process with about 8% of all container terminals either fully or partially automated. As technology improves the required scale and cost of automation will be accessible to a growing number of terminals. Fully and Semi Automated Container Terminals, Total

The annual UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport has been released. Happy to have taken part as an external reviewer as well as collaborating with UNCTAD for maintaining an accurate database about container port activity (see page 71 on the report). https://unctad.org/en/pages/PublicationWebflyer.aspx?publicationid=2245