A Comparative Study Among Black Sea Ports Using Geospatial Data

The Black Sea Plateau is one of the most diverse areas on the continental shelf.Starting from that, the research aims to identify the competitiveness model of Black Sea's ports in order to develop partnership among Black Sea's countries for a sustainable development of Black Sea economic model.To achieve the main purpose of the research, geospatial data gathered from the Marine Traffic Platform was used, which is an online platform that monitors the marine traffic around the world.In this respect, the sample of analysis consists of 36 ports which are activating in the Black Sea Plateau from all the five countries (Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia).The data were analysed using appropriate machine learning techniques in order to identify the economic models existing in the Black Sea Plateau.As it was expected, the main results present diversity among Black Sea's ports, but, at the same time, it can be stated that there are several common directions that can be applied to develop a more sustainable economic model.