The new wave of port congestion and the impact of Ultra Large Container Vessels

The research presented in this paper aims to examine the issue of port congestion at marine container terminals and support decision making to mitigate the impact by providing a better understanding of the consequences of deployment of Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) on container terminal quay, yard and gate operations. While attention has been paid to the root cause of port congestion, a special focus has been given to the impact of ULCV deployment and the resulting increase of the loading/unloading shipment size per call on the quay side operations at the ports of call. Further, the paper extends the recent analysis of quay-side congestion impacts, to the land side operations of marine container terminals, providing a relevant quantitative analysis.