Port cooperation for improving the hinterland accessibility to Central - and Eastern Europe.

The Central-­‐ and Eastern European (CEE) region is a relatively new market that is showing rapid economic developments. Because of their geographical location, ports as Hamburg or Gdansk have a better location for serving this region concerning cargo originating from Asia. This is a threat for western ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp, because they do not have this geographical advantage. In order for the western ports to play a role in serving this emerging CEE market, improvements must be made relating to their competitive position. As geographical position is a factual matter, the western ports must focus on factors that can be influenced, such as costs, speed, frequency and reliability of the transports into the CEE region. This can be achieved by improving their hinterland accessibility. The topic of this research is how cooperation between ports could improve the hinterland accessibility to the CEE region, with the focus on the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. It is likely that ports in cooperation could better improve the previously mentioned factors. Previous work addressed cooperation between ports in general, but a study on the benefits of a cooperation between the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp has not been performed yet. This research does focus on the possibilities of a cooperation between the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. In order to see how such a cooperation in relation to hinterland accessibility to the CEE region could be beneficial, the characteristics, position concerning the maritime, rail and road network, and competitive advantages of ports competing for serving the CEE region were compared to get to the promising area of cooperation. For this, a literature review has been performed, just as a case study on the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, a quantitative data analysis, and two interviews have been conducted. The analysis of the development of the CEE region showed that there has been a significant economic development during the last decade. When looking at individual CEE countries, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic States are the countries that relatively seen showed the steepest economic development. However, this development was influenced by the global economic crisis, which is clear because of the small economic developments during that period. After the recovery period from the economic crisis, wherein it is likely that there will only be a moderate economic growth, it is expected that this steep development will continue. The results of the comparison of these factors are that the port of Gdansk has a competitive position for serving Poland and the Baltic States, but for serving the other CEE countries it cannot compete with the other ports, mainly because of the poor maritime accessibility and underdeveloped road and rail transport network. The port of Hamburg is the main competitor for the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, especially because of its fast, frequent and cheap railway connections into the CEE region. Because of the fast and frequent connections, the port of Hamburg enjoys the benefit of economies of scale and is able to provide for a sharply priced railway product. In order to be able to compete with that, the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp must improve their hinterland accessibility in such a way that they facilitate actors to set prices lower than the port of Hamburg does. 3 Improving the railway hinterland connections appeared to be the promising area of cooperation, mainly because of the great potential it has in relation to frequency and efficiency for the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. These improvements to the railway hinterland connections can be made by investing in the development of a hinterland terminal, by bundling of cargo, and the integration of IT systems. These initiatives can among others contribute to improving the efficiency and increase the frequencies of connections into the CEE region. Previous individual initiatives of the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp for improving the hinterland accessibility to the CEE region in the form of a hinterland terminal were unsuccessful, as they were unable to benefit from those initiatives to the extent that they were able to facilitate a better price setting than the port of Hamburg. Therefore, the majority of transports continued to be transported through the port of Hamburg. Previous initiatives to cooperation between the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp showed that the involvement of an independent third party is very important concerning the success of a cooperation. This is because barriers relating to trust and the division of costs and revenues play a large role within a possible cooperation between the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. The influence of such barriers can be decreased by the involvement of an independent third party that takes care of the operational activities and contributes to avoiding conflicts of interest.