Developing the Fifth Generation Ports Model

Port functions including container ports have been dramatically developing since the inception of container transportation. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (1994), Van den Berg and Van Klink (1995), and Van Klink (1995) documented the function and role in the development of ports from the first generation stage to the fourth generation stage under the category of external environment, functional organization, spatial organization and port organization and strategy (see Table 8A.1). UNCTAD (1999) in its newsletter proposed the concept of “fourth generation port” (4GP), referring to vertical and horizontal integration port strategies. Following the above literature contribution, several studies contributed to classifying ports’ typologies and to elaborating their roles and functions in a comprehensive way (e.g., Beresford et al., 2004; Bichou and Gray, 2005; Flynn et al., 2011; Lee and Lam, 2014, 2015; Paixao and Marlow, 2003; Pettit and Beresford, 2009; Verhoeven, 2010). Flynn et al. (2011) proposed the “fifth generation port” (5GP) with the introduction of “port ladder” for customer centric community-focused port. Most existing literature has not focused on the types of container ports. Container ports are key facilitators of international trade development, being a critical node in the context of supply chain management.