Container transshipment and port competition

The purpose of this paper is to study container port competition for transshipment cargo in duopoly market. We develop the linear container handling demand function which incorporates transshipment traffic, and apply a non-cooperative two-stage game to a vertical-structure seaport market with ports as upstream players and shipping lines as downstream players. The drivers behind port competition are explained through existence of the unique Nash equilibrium which incorporates shipping lines’ port call decisions and ports’ pricing strategies. A port collusion model and social optimum model are then analysed for further insights, and a numerical simulation is conducted to demonstrate the results.