The Mediterranean: a unique living lab reflecting global maritime and port transitions

Résumé En

With only 1% of the surface area of the seas, the Mediterranean alone concentrates 25% of the world's maritime traffic and 30% of its oil traffic, making maritime transport an excellent indicator of the pulse of the world economy.Since Thallassocracies 4 millennias ago, Mediterranean area has always been omnipresent given the compulsory nature of maritime trade exchanges between neighbouring nations disseminated all around the basin and its geographical location on the major world routes. Today, with a globalised and highly competitive shipping industry, the Mediterranean is experiencing a real restructuration in the maritime and port sectors leading to the emergence of major strategic disruptions that represent challenges and opportunities. Three economic sectors are particularly significant in the Mediterranean area: ro-ro, container and cruise shipping.A recent trend has been the integration and specialization of several routes with feeder ships converging at major maritime intermediate hubs in the Mediterranean, in light of the negative impacts of deviations from main maritime shipping routes in terms of services and port calls’ frequency.In this paper, we propose to focus on the ports themselves, in particular with regard to the strategies of the stakeholders including port authorities, shipping lines and finally shippers and logistics providers.