The Lloyd’s List database on daily, worldwide ship movements is a rich and unique material to study the evolution of global maritime networks since the late 19th century. This research first provides a new visualization of the changing distribution of maritime flows on the globe between 1880 and 2008, thanks to a dedicated GIS. Second, we study the network (graph) dimension of these flows by means of graph-theoretical and complex network methods, at different levels of node aggregation, from ports to port cities and city-regions. This is followed by an analysis of the relationships between maritime flows and urban development, notably through the use of a gravity model considering urban population, maritime distances, and land distances between ports and nearby cities. Main results confirm existing knowledge about the growth or decline of certain regions or nodes over time, while it brings new light on the existence of structural change from a meshed to an optimal, albeit more vulnerable, network. We also identify a shift of traffic generation power from port cities to city-regions, as a consequence of the rationalisation of logistics systems after WWII.

César Ducruet; Barbara Polo Martin; Bruno Marnot; Hidekazu Itoh; Dimitrios Tsiotas; Marc-Antoine Faure
French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) & UMR 7235 EconomiX; University of La Rochelle & UMR 7266 LIttoral ENvironnement et Sociétés (LIENSs); Kwansei Gakuin University; Agricultural University of Athens; University of Paris-Nanterre & University of Genoa

 
ID Abstract: 751