| As the global economy slowdown,ports have been trying to secure and expand their hinterland against the confliction of overcapacity and demand recession.At the same time,the application of advanced transport technology,improvement of infrastructures between port and hinterland areas as well as the rapid progress of information technology lead to serious overlap of port hinterland,and this overlapping shows a dynamic feature.On the other hand,the decisionmaking of port choice shows an evolution from shipper to carrier and then to shipper over the past century.International shipping business was restricted by accessibility between the port and hinterland in the early stage,while the shipper always chose the port with the lowest inland transportation cost,mostly the shortest transport distance.With the appearance of door-to-door transportation service,carriers typically represented by shipping companies dominated the right of port choice decision.In recent years,the wide application of supply chain concepts have led to misalignment of business objectives between carriers and shippers-the former builds its service network for maximizing profit,while the lowest logistics cost is no longer the overall goal pursued by the latter’s supply chain.Port hinterland competition in the future depends on whether shippers incorporate them into product supply chains based on their individual needs.This paper identifies the influencing factors of shipper’s port selection through literature summary and field investigation,and uses the AHP method to construct an evaluation index for the application of the shipper port choice preference model.By taking the Shanghai Port and Ningbo-Zhoushan Port as the export ports of the Yangtze River Delta,the classification of the hinterland of the port and the dynamic description of the competitive situation are finally achieved.Results shows that:(1)The factor that affects the shippers’ port selection most is the location advantages of the port,and the least is harbor infrastructure,and the shippers’ preference for Shanghai port selection is slightly higher than that of Ningbo-Zhoushan Port;(2)the results show that most of the hinterlands of Shanghai Port and Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in the Yangtze River Delta region are absolute hinterland and core hinterland,and most of the hinterland divisions satisfies the law of distance attenuation;(3)the hinterland competition between Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan Port appears in their absolute hinterland and core hinterland,such as the Hangzhou urban group and Nanjing urban group.Research findings suggest that port hinterland classification on the basis of shipper’s preference can successfully identify the strength and weakness of port’s competitiveness in each area while the analysis of its dynamic evolution is helpful for exhibiting the market structure,which are particularly useful for port authorities and operators in developing their future marketing strategies,and also an effective supplement to the current port competition research theory. |
