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The top-level MTN contains a snapshot of the maritime transport system including 434 top-nodes (ports) and 227 bottom-nodes (Maritime Coastal Areas (MCAs)). This weighted directed network (WDN) is constructed using the total cargo flows from ports to MCAs and vice versa aggregated over 16 different types of cargo (e.g. crude oil, containers, etc.) in the 4th quarter of 2009. Furthermore, the network exhibits a bipartite characteristic because no information of port-to-port flows is available. Generally, bipartite statistics are computed for the global network including both types of nodes but for the further analysis the focus is set to port nodes only. Especially distributions and further properties are not studied for MCAs.

Check out the Infographic containing the main findings.

Although the Med-to-Med container traffic grew from 16.4 Mio. to 23.3 MT between the 3rd quarter of 2002 and the 3rd quarter of 2008, the relative share decreased steadily in the last decade. Exceptions are the period during the economic crisis and the year 2011 where around 50% of the total traffic was caused by Mediterranean countries. Figure 6.3a compares the evolution of the market share of Med-to-Med traffic (bottom), World-to-Med traffic (middle) and Med-to-World traffic (top). The red horizontal line indicates symmetry between Mediter- ranean traffic and non-Mediterranean traffic. While the Mediterranean traffic has increased by 41%, in the same period non-Mediterranean traffic raised by 76%. In absolute terms the non- Mediterranean container volume grew from 18.3 MT in the 3rd quarter of 2002 to 32.3 MT in the 3rd quarter of 2008. If we oppose the incoming cargo volume with the outgoing cargo volume it can be concluded that the incoming traffic has more than doubled (+106%) and the outgo- ing traffic increased by 51% in the same period. We can safely assume that the one part of the growth in incoming and outgoing traffic is due to the increase of the number of trade partners. As a matter of fact the enormous differences between the growth rates state that the increase of trade partners is secondary.

Check out the Infographic containing the main findings.

For sake of simplicity the method of maximum spanning tree was applied to reduce the complexity of the network making visualization possible. The advantage is that all nodes are included in the final visualization and that there are no overlapping links. For each node only the strongest trade link is drawn. Thus if a MCA u is connected to a seaport v it means that port v is the main trade partner of MCA u. Using network visualization it is possible to map values to different shape, size and color. In case of the networks the size of a vertex was set to the amount of container volume in the given quarter and the color corresponds to the node type.

In all networks it is clearly visible that Gioia Tauro has an important position in the network because it maintains a high number of trade connections and handles a huge amount of contain- ers. Thus it can be concluded that Gioia Tauro is a hub in the network being in line with the fact that in reality it is also designed for the purpose of transshipment. The main trade partners for Gioia Tauro are Italy and Egypt followed by Spain. While the trade relations with Italy and Spain are relative stable over time the trade between Gioia Tauro and Egypt exhibit a non-trivial behavior. It nearly doubled in the first two quarters of 2009 until it totally collapsed. The huge increase is clearly visible in Figure 6.8c. The reason why Egypt is attached to Valencia in Figure 6.8d is that Valencia managed to outrun Gioia Tauro as the main trade partner for Egypt in 2010. Beside Egypt also Turkey had won influence over the years. In 2002 the main trading partner of Turkey was Piraeus but was replaced by Gioia Tauro in 2008. During the crisis the trade relationship between Piraeus and Turkey dropped to a low level though in 2010 Piraeus had remarkable growth rates. However, the trade between Valencia and Turkey increased steadily in the last decade from 132 KT in the 1st quarter of 2002 to 350 KT in the 1st quarter of 2010. It seems that Valencia gains more and more influence as one of the major trade partners of Turkey. Additionally, in the end of 2010 a break down for the relationship between Gioia Tauro and Turkey is visible.

Check out the Infographic containing the main findings.

Check out the Infographic containing the main findings.