The container deep sea and transshipment services in Italian ports: an overview

Container ports in the Mediterranean region can be classified into two main categories, i.e. hub ports and gateway ports This paper, after a brief comparison about the amount and the typology of maritime trade of Italian ports during the recent years, focuses on Italian deep sea container services and their integration with short sea container routes. In particular, a detailed overview has been performed about the deep sea container lines crossing: the ports forming the North Tyrrhenian gateway cluster, i.e. Genoa, La Spezia, Savona and Livorno; the ports forming the North Adriatic gateway cluster, i.e. Ancona, Ravenna, Venezia and Trieste and the Italian hub ports, i.e. Gioia Tauro, Cagliari and Taranto. Then short sea shipping container routes departing from all Italian ports are pointed out. The purpose of the paper is to study deep sea container services in Italian ports and the feeder connections from Tyrrhenian ports towards the hub ports of Gioia Tauro and Cagliari and vice versa, as well as from Adriatic ports towards the hub ports of Gioia Tauro and Taranto and vice versa, in order to highlight the transhipment phenomenon in the overall Italian maritime scenario