Research On The Competition Strategy Of Regional Ports In Hinterland

China’s port construction has developed rapidly over the past 20 years,forming a network of five major coastal port groups with perfect layout and complete functions.However,due to the decline of international trade in recent years,port throughput began to slow down or even grow negatively.To maintain market share,regional ports use various means to compete fiercely for hinterland cargo sources,which is extremely prone to the problem of vicious competition and poses a threat to the sustainable development of the port and shipping industry.Therefore,it is important to study reasonable hinterland competition strategies among ports to improve port decision-making and guide the healthy development of port and shipping market.This paper first reviews the domestic and foreign research results related to port competition,pricing,and transportation network planning,and sorts out the models and methods of competitive game and shipper path selection to lay the theoretical foundation for the subsequent research.Secondly,the pricing strategy of ports to hinterland shippers under the competitive environment is studied from the tactical level.The prerequisites and specific options for ports to adopt differentiated pricing are explored in three stages,and the impact of pricing strategies on port profits,shipper surplus and social welfare is analyzed.Third,the hinterland transportation network planning strategies of ports in a competitive environment are studied at the strategic level.A nested logit model is used to describe shippers’ path selection preferences,and a transport network planning model is developed for ports to make dual decisions on dry port location and service pricing in the hinterland with the objectives of maximizing intermodal traffic volume and maximizing operational profit,respectively,for the differences between the hinterland market incubation period and the market maturity period,and a pure strategy Nash equilibrium algorithm incorporating genetic algorithm is designed to solve the problem.Finally,the game model of hinterland transportation network planning is analyzed by taking Beibu Gulf Port and Zhanjiang Port as examples.The results of the pricing model show that there are only two types of equilibrium states for port pricing in a competitive environment: both single pricing and differentiated pricing,and the ports should determine the differentiated pricing scheme by combining shippers’ transportation costs,cargo characteristics and port capacity.The analysis results show that ports should give priority to the transportation demand and geographical location of each source when planning the hinterland transportation network,set the number of dry ports reasonably,and minimize the dry port charges to ensure the maximum port throughput and operating profit.There are 29 figures,33 tables and 76 references.