ODU’s Maritime Institute, comparing American and European ports

by Andrew Sinclair, Hampton Roads Partnership Program Manager

On Monday morning, March 30 Thanos Pallis, a professor in the Department of Shipping, Trade & Transport at the University of the Aegean in Greece (and visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Center for Energy, Marine Transportation & Public Policy at Columbia University), gave a presentation at Nauticus as part of ODU’s Maritime Institute Speaker Series. Dr. Pallis’ remarks focused on the current trends in European port operations and the efforts to create a consistent European Port Policy.

Overall, it seems that European and US ports face the same issues: infrastructure upgrades, traffic congestion, needed warehouse space, consolidation and location of distribution centers/logistics parks, expedited connections inland, etc. The perceived primary user of transportation infrastructure is a notable difference, as Dr. Pallis’ ninth slide indicates: rather than noting the number of trucks on the road, it indicates the number of passenger cars slowing down port truck traffic! The environment and the impact on it by port operations seems also to be of a greater concern in Europe, perhaps because there are not clear and consistent procedures on how to evaluate and mitigate environmental impacts as there is in the US. Finally, Europe is seeing a trend of port alliances and mergers unlike in the US, including mergers across national borders: specifically, all the Scandinavia ports recently consolidated under one authority.

Comparing European and American Ports

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