Port-city interactions: models and case studies

Historically ports are directly connected with the cities. Even more: ancient cities were born where ports were. Firstly, the port is born and, then, the city around, which grows in symbiosis with the port. This element remains an indissoluble union over the centuries. Cities are fed by ports and urban productions are sent to other cities via ports. The territorial model, defined as “first-generation” port by UNCTAD, remains constant through the millennia. It has been variously treated in the scientific literature with different approaches using aggregate models. The territorial model has not been studied in depth in its founding variables, which are those connected to the flow of goods and passengers. The paper is articulated into some parts. The first one presents the theoretical approaches proposed to explain interactions between port and city using as explicative variables, the flows of passengers and goods. The second one presents a comparative analysis of some representative case studies of port-city interactions, in order to aggregate the observed processes in some macro-classes. The work may be considered a step able to open several directions to study the port-city interaction process and the connection with transport by means of Transport System Models (TSMs). The use of TSMs could allow to extend the consolidated quantitative methods developed in the field of passengers’ mobility and freight distribution in urban transport networks to the larger field of port-city interactions. The proposed modelling approaches can be of great interest to traffic and transport planners because they allow to integrate the port economic system inside the traffic or transport plans of the city. This integration is even more necessary inside plans with sustainability objectives.