Cooperation in the bundling of hinterland flows of adjacent seaports, an application to the European TEN-T core ports

One area for ports to cooperate is the development of hinterland connectivity. By bundling streams, a volume can be reached that allows a modal shift to a more efficient transport with lower external costs, thus increasing the attractiveness of the cooperating ports. This paper presents a cost model that allows comparison between an unbundled road transport and a bundled, multimodal solution for the hinterland connectivity of seaports. It takes into account the direct costs, the generalised costs and the external costs. It empiricalizes this cost model for all of the 104 European core TEN_T ports and their 281 NUTS2 hinterland regions. Next, it applies this to a case study of the newly created North Sea port, a transnational merger of the ports of Ghent, Vlissingen and Terneuzen. It shows that bundling between neighbouring ports can result in a volume that makes a modal shift economically viable, while at the same time lowering the cost of the hinterland connection.