Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

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Transportation Research Part D

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trd

A global review of the hinterland dimension of green port strategies

T
a a,⁎ b,a
Marta Gonzalez Aregall , Rickard Bergqvist , Jason Monios
a
Logistics and Transport Research Group, Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of
Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden
b
Kedge Business School, Marseille, France

AR TI CLE I NF O AB S T R A CT

Keywords: Despite a growing literature on strategies to reduce emissions and other externalities in shipping
Green port and ports, very little attention has been given to the port’s role in reducing negative externalities
Shipping in its hinterland. This paper addresses this gap by reviewing ports across the globe to identify
Environment which ports have implemented measures to improve the environmental performance of hinter-
Emissions
land transport. Results show that only 76 out of 365 ports examined are doing so. The measures
Climate change
Congestion
applied are identified, related to different goals and their challenges discussed. The most common
Intermodal measures are found to be technology improvements, infrastructure development and monitoring
Hinterland programmes, and the most advanced ports in green hinterland strategies are Rotterdam, Los
Angeles/Long Beach and Hamburg, although many ports that are world leaders in green port
strategies have not implemented measures in the hinterland dimension. Different port groups are
segmented according to their mix of goals and measures as a foundation for future research.

1. Introduction

It is well accepted that ports today play a greater role than simply handling cargo on the quayside. Both the sources of their
competition and the extent of their influence stretch across the sea and also deep into the hinterland (Bergqvist, 2015). Their
management and operational strategies are entwined with stakeholders on several scales, from local to global and from business to
government. In the last decade the port hinterland has attracted increasing attention, as the port’s role in coordinating hinterland
logistics activities has become not only a necessary aspect of maintaining competitiveness but also a tool of competition (Notteboom
and Rodrigue, 2005; Bergqvist and Woxenius, 2011; Kramberger et al., 2018). Ports are a potential focal point for coordinating these
strategies (de Langen, 2008; Ng and Liu, 2014) since their activities directly and indirectly affect local and regional traffic systems.
Furthermore, the port’s role in the transport chain has the potential to shape the social and environmental performance of trans-
portation systems (OECD, 2011). While many ports choose not to act beyond complying with existing environmental regulations in
their city, region or country, in some cases they have exercised their potential for addressing both social and environmental ex-
ternalities.
Academic literature over the last decade has increasingly focused on the challenge of reducing emissions from shipping and ports.
The main issues relate to reducing emissions of vessels while at sea (in 2007–2012 accounting for 2.8% of global GHG emissions or
double the level produced by air travel – Smith et al., 2014), mostly from IMO regulations on cleaner fuel (Cullinane and Bergqvist,
2014; Lister et al., 2015). These have focused on SOx and more recently on NOx rather than CO2 despite the large contribution to
global GHG emissions from shipping. Other strategies include vessel design improvements (Lindstad et al., 2012; Lindstad and
Eskeland, 2015) and fuel usage reduction through slow steaming (Cariou, 2011; Zis et al., 2015).

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: rickard.bergqvist@handels.gu.se (R. Bergqvist).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2017.12.013

1361-9209/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

Vessel emissions in ports are increasingly of concern, especially for SOx, NOx and PM which affect the health of local populations.
Vessel emissions in ports are mainly addressed by methods such as cold ironing, use of LNG and vessel speed reduction in the port
(Winkel et al., 2016; Sciberras et al., 2015; Styhre et al., 2017; Winnes et al., 2015). Emissions actually produced by port activities
contribute less of the total emissions but are increasingly addressed through methods such as increasing operational efficiency
(Wilmsmeier and Spengler, 2016) and generating their own green energy onsite (e.g. wind turbines) (Acciaro et al., 2014a). As well
as modelling emissions reductions through various strategies (e.g. Yang et al., 2012; Gibbs et al., 2014), some authors have taken a
management perspective on the kind of measures available for port managers and the challenges associated with each one (e.g. Lam
and Notteboom, 2014; Acciaro et al., 2014b).
However, very few of these papers have addressed the environmental performance of the landside, even though this aspect of the
port’s activities contribute to a range of externalities, especially emissions (both local and GHG) and congestion (Bergqvist and Egels-
Zandén, 2012; Bergqvist et al., 2015). These externalities are normally calculated and accounted for within land transport figures; for
example, the transport sector is responsible for about a quarter of GHG emissions in Europe, as well as the main source of local air
pollution (European Commission, 2017). Yet, emissions from port hinterland transport only occur because of the port activity and
indeed if they are to be improved then interaction between the port and inland actors will be required. Thus, while it may not be
entirely correct to suggest that it is the port’s responsibility in the same way as emissions within the port area, we argue nonetheless
that the greening of hinterland transport is at least partly the port’s responsibility. Gibbs et al. (2014) show that in an analysis of the
UK’s busiest container port Felixstowe, hinterland transport emissions (138 kT CO2) are about double the emissions produced by port
activities (71.5 kT CO2) and they also argue that they should be considered by ports as within the scope of their carbon reduction
activities.
As the interchange point linking land and sea, there are three types of emissions over which ports have some influence, according
to the WPCI: emissions from port activities (handling, etc.), indirect emissions from generation of electricity used in port activities,
and emissions from transport to/from the port (including vessels and hinterland transport). With regard to the third set, there has
been significant work on vessels but not on inland transport, suggesting that, despite the common view that ports are integrated in
their hinterlands, there remains a disjunct between shipping and inland transport when it comes to academic studies, with only few
environmental studies incorporating the entire end-to-end chain (Gibbs et al., 2014).
This exploratory review will add to the literature by focusing on green port strategies in the hinterland. The paper aims to address
the lack of studies on port hinterland sustainability by identifying the current issues recognised by ports and classifying their main
goals, before identifying the potential measures available and then analysing ports across the globe to determine the current ap-
plication of these measures. Finally, the segmentation of port groups will lead to a benchmarking of key issues associated with the
greening or hinterland transport as a spur to further research on this topic. Such measures have not yet been identified in previous
research, therefore this research may contribute towards helping ports to improve the environmental performance of their connecting
transport network, thus adding the missing hinterland dimension to the existing studies on the sea leg and the port area.

2. Green port regulation

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has slowly introduced various regulations to reduce emissions in sea transport,
through various annexes to the MARPOL convention originally introduced in 1973 (Lister et al., 2015). These cover various maritime
pollution issues such as ballast water, oil spills, emissions and invasive species. Focusing on emissions reduction, there are SECA areas
already in place with a cap of 0.1% sulphur and a global sulphur limit of 0.5% from 2020, some NOx limits on new vessels, the Energy
Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) and the Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP). But there remains no global CO2 limit.
However, the IMO is not the only actor in shipping regulation. The EU has brought in a regulation that all vessels calling at EU ports
for longer than two hours must use fuel with a sulphur content below 0.1%. Additionally, they will apply a new MRV (monitoring,
reporting and verification) regulation as of January 2018, requiring compulsory monitoring of CO2 emitted by vessels larger than
5000 gross tonnage calling at EU ports as the first step towards supposedly setting targets, but there are no limits or actions as yet.
However, these all apply to ships and ship operators and not to the ports.
Various governments and international bodies such as the EU also encourage various actions in ports. The EU white paper on
transport (European Commission, 2011: 9) aimed to cut carbon emissions from transport by 60% by 2050, based on strategies such as
reducing “CO2 emissions from maritime bunker fuels by 40%” and an intermodal target of “30% of road freight over 300 km should
shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50% by 2050, facilitated by efficient and green
freight corridors.” More recently, EU directive 2014/94 requires all EU ports to prioritise cold ironing and LNG bunkering availability
(European Commission, 2014).
In addition to directives from the European Commission, the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) promotes environmental
management, policies and plans in European ports. In order to promote the ESPO Green Guide, in 1999 this institution established the
EcoPorts Foundation, a network of European ports to identify the significant environmental aspects of port activities, products and
services. Similarly, in the Americas, the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA), with 150 members in North, Central and
South America, has developed a guide for environmental management, the Environmental Management Handbook (EMH).
Various international initiatives provide new steps towards becoming greener. In 2008 the International Association of Ports and
Harbors (IAPH) requested its Port Environment Committee, in collaboration with the regional port organizations, to provide a
mechanism for assisting the ports to combat climate change. As a result, in 2008 the C40 World Ports Climate Declaration was
adopted, which elaborates initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions of hinterland transport. This led to what is now the World Port Climate
Initiative (WPCI), numbering 55 ports worldwide that pursue various green measures such as giving discounts to vessels scoring

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

above a certain threshold on the Environmental Ship Index (ESI).

Despite all these regulations and voluntary initiatives, there is little in the way of regulation for the port hinterland. Some
countries do support and promote modal shift to rail or water as a general approach towards transport policy in their country, but it is
not treated in the maritime context as a specific port measure and not mandated.

3. Hinterlands in the green port literature

While there is a growing literature on green ports, almost none deal with hinterlands. Also, in the extant literature, of the few
papers that provide rather long lists of potential green ports measures, almost none include hinterland measures such as modal shift,
with the exception of Lam and Notteboom (2014) and Acciaro et al. (2014b).
Lam and Notteboom (2014) identify a range of potential measures available to ports (divided into pricing, monitoring and
measuring, market access control and environmental standard regulation) and then apply these to the functional activities of the
ports (shipping traffic, cargo handling and storage operations, intermodal connection, industrial activities, port expansion). They
analyse four case studies (Singapore, Shanghai, Rotterdam, Antwerp) and find that the enforcement approach through environmental
regulation is the most prevalent and also the European ports are more proactive in implementing their own green measures. These
authors are one of the rare papers to include a hinterland action, namely the concession agreement between the Rotterdam port
authority and terminal operators concerning a certain level of modal split for intermodal transport.
Acciaro et al. (2014b) list several different green objectives such as monitoring pollution, providing waste reception facilities and
balancing energy usage within the port, divided into those driven by the landlord, regulators, operators and the community actors.
These authors do briefly mention hinterland strategies as one of the landlord functions. Chen and Pak (2017) performed a Delphi
study in three Chinese ports (Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao) and produced a list of measures, grouped under six themes: liquid pollution
management, air pollution management, noise control, low carbon and energy saving, marine biology preservation, organisation and
management. Lirn et al. (2013) derived a list of 32 measures from the literature which they then reduced to 17 to survey stakeholders
at three Asian ports (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kaohsuing) on their performance against these measures. Neither of these two papers
included hinterland strategies.
Few authors have explicitly analysed green port strategies in the hinterland. Giuliano and O’Brien (2008) examined extended gate
operations at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach where the ports introduced the PierPASS programme which applied fees during
peak hours in order to incentivise traffic to shift to evenings and weekends, thus reducing congestion on access roads during peak
times. Bergqvist and Egels-Zandén (2012) focused on the use of differentiated port dues to incentivise a more environmentally
friendly hinterland transport system. The authors analysed the attitudes of different stakeholders on the issue of environmentally
differentiated port dues related to hinterland activities in regard to “likelihood of demanding green port dues”, “stakeholder salience”
and “likely position if green port dues were implemented”. The study concluded that the public stakeholders had the greatest motives
to implement such a system. The authors also proposed that the implementation of green port dues related to hinterland transport
probably had the greatest likelihood to be implemented in (1) situations where the current modal shift requires substantial infra-
structure investment, (2) ports that have congestion issues on the hinterland side and (3) ports with a public owner. Van den Berg and
De Langen (2014) explored the use of modal split obligations in port terminal concession contracts by the port of Rotterdam. They
revealed that, in order for the terminal operators to achieve this goal, they must engage actively with inland partners (such as inland
terminals) to develop high quality hinterland transport attractive to carriers who make the mode choice.
Bergqvist et al. (2015) identified four types of measures to improve the environmental performance of hinterland transport:
internalisation of externalities, road pricing, modal split quota and additional port dues. They performed a multi-actor multi-criteria
analysis of several stakeholder groups (port authorities, port terminals, shippers, LSPs, inland terminals, local and state governments,
NGOs and labour unions) and found that modal split quota was the least popular, while road pricing and port dues were the most
popular overall. Yet several challenges occur with implementing these strategies, derived to a great extent from the difficulties of
benchmarking and setting the cost levels.
There is also a large literature on intermodal transport for modal shift which is not directly within the scope of this paper. Much of
this literature addresses the operational issues of rail and barge transport without an explicit role for the port. This large literature
reveals the many challenges of successful intermodal transport, such as equipment mismatch, difficulties in consolidating volume,
lack of information sharing to plan services and a lack of flexibility and reliability (see Monios and Bergqvist, 2017 for a recent
overview). When considering the port’s role in hinterland transport, often the most successful intermodal projects are those where the
port is closely involved in such strategies and developments (Monios and Wilmsmeier, 2012), often a high level of integration in the
intermodal corridor between port and inland location in order to increase the efficiency and attractiveness of the connection thus
ultimately leading to a high level of modal shift and hence reduction in emissions and congestion. Thus the port’s location as the
transhipment hub in the transport chain puts them in a unique position to promote intermodality through a variety of mechanisms, a
situation that also applies to other hinterland interventions as examined in this paper.

4. Methodology

This section provides a description of the methodology for the study. As mentioned above, this study aims to identify current
green port strategies in the hinterland dimension. However, in contrast to the sea dimension, there is a lack of international reg-
ulation and incentives for enhancing the environmental performance of hinterland transportation. Consequently, we have focused on
the green hinterland strategies applied by individual port authorities.

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

There exists no available common list of all port authorities around the world. For this reason, and in order to consider a large
sample of cases, the methodology used to identify cases was to match the IAPH database against the World Port Ranking to create a
common list of the largest port authorities across the world. After matching both lists, the full common list contained 365 port
authorities. Following that, in order to ascertain which ports were active in sustainable hinterland strategies, a qualitative review was
conducted by the authors of all relevant and available documentation on these ports, such as port authority websites, annual reports,
project documents like Bestfact case studies, Green Port projects and private firms’ internet sites. More information was sought from
secondary research such as academic studies and official reports of public institutions (e.g. UNECE, 2010; OECD, 2011; UNCTAD,
2016). A snowball technique was followed, searching all available sources of data until data saturation was reached and no new
information was found. However, a limitation of the methodology is that absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence,
hence it remains possible that some ports may be implementing green hinterland strategies without publicising evidence. Having said
that, considering the public relations value of such activities (indeed being one of the main drivers), we consider it unlikely that any
of these ports are following such strategies but not communicating them in some form. Moreover, as the primary goal of this research
is to produce the first global review and identify the major strategy types, if a small number of port strategies were missed (which we
consider unlikely) it would make little impact on the overall findings. As a result of this review process, 76 cases (port authorities)
were identified with evidence of green hinterland strategies, with a total of 165 individual hinterland initiatives. Each initiative was
listed in a table with a description of the activities, the stated goals and the outcome (if the action was complete), although the aim of
this paper is to identify strategies attempted, not whether or not they were successful. Further information on the analytical method is
described where relevant in the results section.

5. Results

5.1. Identifying goals, designs and measures

The first step in the analysis was to identify different goals set by ports to improve the environmental performance of their
hinterland transport in different ways. These needed to be summarised and streamlined, as some websites and documents use
different language to describe the same or similar goals. Thus, in order to homogenize all incentives with similar objectives to enable
analysis and comparison, we classified them in four clear and distinct goals:

1. Air emissions: reduction of air pollution (all kinds, but as many of the strategies aim to reduce emissions from road vehicles whose
engines already produce lower NOx, SOx and PM than maritime vessels, the reductions are likely to be mostly related to CO2).
2. Noise: reduction of noise from trucks, train locomotives and inland vessels
3. Land congestion: reduction of traffic flows on connecting infrastructure
4. Modal shift and intermodality. Transfer traffic from a congested mode (road) to a less congested mode (rail or inland waterway)
and promoting the cooperation between two or more transport modes (e.g. information sharing, planning services).

There is clearly some overlap in these goals, and indeed in such policy analyses it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between
goals and measures. For instance, it could be argued that modal shift is not a goal in itself but a measure to achieve certain other
goals, such as a reduction in emissions and congestion. However, given that certain measures applied by the ports are in place in
order to make modal shift feasible and attractive, modal shift must remain as a goal in its own right.
Fig. 1 maps the locations of the ports, as well as showing the split of the four goals, described above, in each continent.1 From a
geographical perspective, the region with the largest number of cases with goals to improve the environmental performance of their
hinterlands is Europe. The reason for this is likely related to the regulatory context of the EU, the strong relationship between port
authorities and public stakeholders and an increase in public awareness and lobbying given that many ports have city locations. This
could also explain the fact that European ports seem to target several different environmental goals.
Following Europe, North America and Asia present the same amount of port cases, whereas Middle East, Africa and South America
are the regions with a low number of cases. Asia’s and Oceania’s split between different goals is similar to Europe and is probably a
result of an increasing level of economic output and wealthy population with a strong voice from community lobby groups. Modal
shift is not high on the agenda in North America, South America, Africa or the Middle East, where air emissions and congestion are
dominant. This is due to differing reasons – in North America intermodal transport is already very successful due to long distance and
high capacity infrastructure, therefore it needs less support from port actions, whereas in the other continents it is not advanced
sufficiently to even get onto the agenda.
The next step is to identify the measures applied by each port. Again there are difficulties here in terms of identifying if a port is
really applying a green hinterland measure. If a port says they are collaborating with inland rail operators to improve the quality of
the intermodal service, is that really an action? If any port who claimed to be active in the hinterland was included then the list of
cases and measures would be much larger. For this analysis strict decision parameters were included that required evidence in the
port documentation of a clear defined action that has taken place or been instituted with clear involvement by the port authority.
Examples include evidence of having invested some money into a project or applied a specific regulation or fee system.
165 measures were identified, which were then grouped into ten different types (referred to as designs in order to distinguish

1
See Table A1 in the Appendix A for a list of all port authorities contained in our analysis.

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

Fig. 1. Location of cases and distribution of identified goals (with inset showing close-up of North Europe).

between the group types and the number of individual measures implemented). The list of individual measures grouped into ten types
was reviewed with academic colleagues to test whether the 165 measures fit into the ten types and whether other category types
could be added, with the result that no changes were deemed necessary to this classification. According to the approach of Lam and
Notteboom (2014), these can be divided into pricing (P), monitoring and measuring (MAM), market access control (MAC) and
environmental standard regulation (ESR). Yet all four of these are enforcement mechanisms rather than positive supporting measures.
Thus we include a fifth category of supporting investment (SI). It shows that there is a diverse spread, three each for supporting
investments and market access controls, two for environmental standard regulation and one each for pricing and monitoring and
measuring:

1. Certification: granting of authorization or license from being recognised as “environmentally friendly” according to a specific
framework (MAC)
2. Concession contract: modal split obligation for the port terminal operator (MAC)
3. Dedicated infrastructure: construction of specific facilities or connections (SI)
4. Engine standards: incentive programmes related to sources of power or engine performance/emission standards (ESR)
5. Improve knowledge: educational programmes for professionals (SI)
6. Monitoring programme: inventory and emissions control (M&M)
7. Port dues and subsidy funds: subsidies to promote sustainability (P)
8. Regulatory instrument: implementation of different regulations regarding certain emission levels/limits (ESR)
9. Intermodal service development: taking an active role in developing and/or operating an intermodal service (MAC)
10. Technology: electronic devices and technology platforms (SI).

Some of these measures are familiar from the intermodal transport literature, such as more obvious strategies of investing in
infrastructure or technology, monitoring and education programmes or modal split obligations in terminal concession contracts.
Applying differentiated port dues was also discussed in the literature review. Measures on this list that are less familiar are certi-
fication schemes and engine standard incentives. An example of the former is the Clean Truck Certification implemented by the South
Carolina Ports Authority where all trucks must be certificated based on engine year; only trucks with post-1993 engine year can
access the port. An example of engine standard incentives is the Clean Truck Replacement Incentive Program applied by the port of
New Orleans. This voluntary program aims to encourage fleet owners to invest in replacing trucks with cleaner models.
Table 1 lists the total number of measures applied in each continent. It reveals that Oceania has the highest number of different

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

Table 1
Summary of different cases by location and number of measures.

Continent Cases Goals Designs Measures

Total Per case Total Per case Total Per case

Europe 29 40 1.4 45 1.6 67 2.3

North America 17 23 1.4 35 2.1 45 2.6
Asia 17 21 1.2 25 1.5 29 1.7
Oceania 9 14 1.6 15 1.7 20 2.2
Middle East 2 2 1.0 2 1.0 2 1.0
Africa 1 1 1.0 1 1.0 1 1.0
South America 1 1 1.0 1 1.0 1 1.0
Total 76 102 1.2 124 1.4 165 1.7

goals per case, closely followed by Europe and North America. While the latter two continents have the same number of goals per
case, North American has a broader scope of measure types as well as more individual measures per case. Interestingly, Asia and
Oceania also demonstrate a broad range of measure types and high number of measures per case. The figures for the other three
continents are difficult to interpret given the very low number of cases.
Table 2 maps the stated goals for each case against the identified measure types (designs) in order to understand which measures
are most commonly used to achieve which goal.
The table shows that the most common goal is air emissions reduction and the most popular measures to achieve it are monitoring
programmes and engine emission regulation. Land congestion and modal shift also scored highly as goals. Noise abatement was not a
very popular goal, which is to be expected as noise tends to attract less focus than the other goals, except in certain specific locations.
The clear top measure for reducing land congestion was technology while the top measure to achieve modal shift was dedicated
infrastructure. There was thus quite a mix of measures with few being able to meet all goals, but overall technology, dedicated
infrastructure and monitoring programmes were clearly the most popular measure types. An example of technology is the Vehicle
Booking System implemented by the Port of Auckland which requires trucks to book slots in advance in order to reduce peak truck
congestion. An illustration of dedicated infrastructure is the tunnel connecting the Vuosaari Terminal at the Port of Helsinki to the
city. Finally, the Clean Air Action Plan applied by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach aims to collect air and weather data in the
harbour area through monitoring stations.
In contrast, use of modal split obligations in concession contracts, knowledge improvement and certification programmes are the
least common designs. It is understandable that obligations in concession contracts are unpopular and difficult to implement, but
given the ease of education courses and the increasing use of certification schemes in land transport (e.g. Ecostars used in many
cities), it is surprising that such measures scored so low. In terms of measure types, all three market access controls appear down the
bottom of the table, indicating the lack of popularity of such difficult mechanisms. On the other hand, two out of three supporting
investments and environmental regulations were in the top half, along with a monitoring scheme. While on one hand it is surprising
that investments were popular, on the other hand they are easier to control and implement with clear expected results (from e.g. an
increase in capacity on a certain route) than compelling port users to meet certain requirements for market access. Environmental
regulations were mostly based on encouraging and incentivising users to improve rather than being proscriptive about their market
access, which explains their popularity as they are easier to implement but not stringent enough to antagonise customers.

5.2. Segmenting port groups according to goals, designs and measures

The next step it to analyse the findings further by looking into how cases are distributed according to the number of goals they

Table 2
Summary of cases based on goal and design combinations.

Design Goal

Modal shift & intermodality Acoustic emissions Air emissions Land congestion Total

SI Technology 4 2 5 29 40
SI Dedicated infrastructure 26 0 1 8 35
M&M Monitoring program 0 3 22 2 27
ESR Engine regulations 0 0 19 0 19
ESR Regulatory instrument 0 4 8 6 18
MAC Intermodal service development 9 0 1 0 10
P Port dues and subsidy fund 4 0 5 1 10
MAC Certification 0 0 2 1 3
SI Improve knowledge 0 1 1 0 2
MAC Concession contract 1 0 0 0 1
Total 44 10 64 47 165

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

3 2 1 1 2
No. of goals

2 2 5 4 2 1

1 47 8 1

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
No. of designs
Fig. 2. Cases plotted against number of goals and number of designs.

focus on and the number of different measures they use to achieve them. Fig. 2 produces an overall picture of the number of cases
located in each combination of goals and designs.
Most cases (47) have a one goal/one design focus while on the right there is a small group of cases that have both a wide scope in
terms of goals (2–3) and a high diversity of designs (4–5). Yet it is interesting that no single port has all 4 goals or all 10 measures. In
between is a mix of cases with 1–3 goals and 1–3 designs. This group is significantly different from the other two groups since they
generally have a wider scope in their environmental policies (keep in mind this only refers to hinterland related measures).
Expanding the analysis further, Fig. 3 analyses the goals of cases with the total number of measures disregarding the different type of
designs. By doing this, we can complement the analyses to see cases that have implemented several measures within the same design
and that could to some extent illustrate the level of commitment compared to the breadth of designs. Thus, while the same three
groups remain, the group on the right is further distinguished from the others and the number of ports in this group declines from 6 to

3 2 2 1 1
No. of goals

2 3 5 2 2 1 1

1 44 7 4 1

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
No. of measures
Fig. 3. Cases plotted against number of goals and number of measures.

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

7
Baltimore Melbourne Amsterdam Felixstowe
Brisbane Nagoya Antwerp Montreal
Busan New York Aukland Sydney
6 Charleston Oakland Barcelona Vancouver
Chennai Seattle
Fremantle Shanghai LA & Long Rotterdam
Beach
5 Genoa Southampton 1 1 1
Helsinki Tacoma
Hueneme Taichung
No. of designs

Kaohsiung Yokohama
4 Keelung 1 2

3 4 1 1

2 1 4 7 1 1 Hamburg 1

1 43 6

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
No. of measures
Fig. 4. Cases plotted against number of designs and number of measures.

3, while the middle group is slightly more expanded.

Finally, to analyse how the number of measures corresponds to different designs, Fig. 4 cross references the number of measures
and the number of designs, from which four different groups emerge. Again, the one goal/one measure group and then two groups
with different levels of scope for designs and scale of measures. The top right corner consists of ports that, compared to others, have a
comprehensive scope of designs and a high number of individual measures indicating their commitment to sustainable hinterland
measures. These groups will be discussed in the following section.

5.3. Classifying the port groupings

The x-axis of Fig. 4 represents the degree of commitment to hinterland actions by number of measures introduced while the y-axis
depicts the spread of diversity of hinterland sustainability designs. Leaving aside the outlier of Hamburg for the moment, the re-
maining 75 ports demonstrate a clear evolution or trend line from bottom-left to top-right of the figure, allowing the previous three-
group structure to be diversified into four groups. There is revealed a small group of diverse and committed ports as the leaders in the
field, having 5 of a possible 10 different designs and 10–11 total measures implemented: Rotterdam and LA/LB.2 These two ports are
well known in the green port literature for being proactive in such strategies. It is also no surprise that they should be leaders in green
hinterland strategies given their well-known activities for measures such as intermodal (Rotterdam) and clean air programmes (LA/
LB).
These two ports have also implemented a high number of innovative measures: in the case of the Port of Rotterdam, the
PortShuttle Rotterdam that permits exchange of containers between terminals through rail connection, and particularly the unique
modal split obligation on the concession contract (Van den Berg and De Langen, 2014). This modal split obligation was very in-
novative but also controversial, through which terminal operating companies were required to indicate in their tender the modal split
they expected to achieve and the methods by which they would achieve it. Thus the port authority did not specify the means but only
the desired outcome, allowing the operators a degree of autonomy and flexibility. Nevertheless, as shown by Van den Berg and De
Langen (2014), a high degree of cooperation between the port authority, the terminal operator and inland transport providers is
necessary. Such collaboration is necessary for many green port strategies (e.g. working with carriers to incentivise greener vessel
designs and use of cold ironing), but perhaps even more so in the hinterland dimension, where flows and carriers are less con-
centrated than on the seaside. Indeed, port actors (both port authority and terminal operator) have less power to enforce strategies in
the hinterland and instead must focus strongly on collaboration. As argued by authors for over a decade now (e.g. Notteboom and
Winklemans, 2001), in current times where terminal operators deal directly with carriers, one of the main roles of the port authority
becomes to collaborate with other actors in a strategic perspective, one key dimension of which is the hinterland.
The other leading port is Los Angeles/Long Beach. Some significant strategies from the ports of LA/LB include the Alameda
Corridor as a freight connection between both ports and the hinterland, as well as the PierPASS Program that aims to encourage port
carriers to spread pickups outside peak hours and thus reduce congestion. As with the Rotterdam modal split requirement, this
programme was very interventionist, which marks out these two ports as those most prepared to implement radical policies that

2
While the two ports are managed separately, it was decided to merge them in this analysis as many of their green hinterland initiatives are undertaken jointly and
much of their hinterland transport is effectively the same flow using the same infrastructure.

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

might upset their clients. In this case, the PierPASS programme applied fees during peak hours to reduce congestion and encourage
traffic to shift to evenings and weekends. Nevertheless, the underlying motivation to take such a drastic move came from political
pressure, which is more likely to occur in a city-based port where local health issues are gaining increasing attention through local
lobby groups. On the other hand, in this case truck drivers were adversely affected by the programme, facing increased delays, the
cost of which they were not able to pass on to their customers (Giuliano and O’Brien, 2008).
The port of Hamburg represents an interesting outlier. As a city port like Rotterdam and LA/LB it is certainly motivated to green
its hinterland performance, and shows several measures adopted, but with only narrowly focused goals of congestion and noise. This
focus can likely be explained by the fact that the port has been struggling in recent years with current challenges of hinterland traffic
congestion (Port Strategy, 2014). To illustrate this, the effective depiction of the traffic situation EVE Program aims to offer extensive
traffic information to determine precise indicators for road traffic in the port. Furthermore, the Port Road Management Centre is
focused on distributing traffic flows effectively.
On the left side of Fig. 4 can be seen the largest group of 43 ports with only one goal and one measure. While these could be
potentially classified as beginner ports in this field, many cases may have specific reasons why they only require a small focus, so it
cannot be inferred that they are not paying attention to the sustainability of their hinterlands. In between the beginner and leader
groups are two progressively developing groups of ports, one with 1–3 designs and 2–3 total measures and one with 2–5 designs and
4–7 individual measures.
The case data is not sufficient to identify the features of each of the four groups of ports. Each will have different levels of
incentives from e.g. regulators, community, etc. The more mature groups are likely to have a greater number of policy documents and
studies, a proactive management team and a closer relationship with the community. Further research is needed to study these ports
through detailed case studies to determine if there are different features, especially between the two middle groups identified in
Figure .
Finally, it is also necessary to recognise the spatial dimension relating to why these ports are more interested in the hinterland
than other proactive green ports. Of the 76 ports in the sample, the vast majority can be classified as city ports, therefore they will
have higher incentives and pressure from lobby groups for cleaner air nearby. Thus there is to some degree a self-selecting nature to
this sample, but also the fact that they tend to be located in wealthier countries and cities, with the Middle East, Africa and South
America heavily under-represented. As local air pollution rises up the policy agenda in wealthier countries, even demonstrating how
the more local and noticeable impact of NOx, SOx and PM is leading to action on transport emissions that climate concern related to
CO2 emissions could not, poorer countries are as usual affected disproportionately by the negative externalities of global trade.

6. Discussion and conclusion

The role of ports in global supply chains and their role as modal connectors puts them in an ideal situation for promoting better
environmental performance of hinterland transport. According to the study of ship emissions in ports by Winnes et al. (2015: 81), half
of the GHG emissions came from ships with fewer than ten visits per year, which “decreases the port’s potential to offer significant
incentives for fuel shifts, onshore power supply and design improvements, since these measures often are connected with high
investment costs.” In contrast to ships, hinterland intermodal transport is very regular and repetitive with the same vehicles (trains
and barges) running regular shuttles to and from the port on dedicated infrastructure, hence any large investments required will reap
bigger rewards than are possible on the seaside.
The hinterland aspect is actually also more complex than the seaside when it comes to green strategies. As evidenced by the ten
different measure types, there are many issues to deal with in order to achieve the goals, such as designing and investing in infra-
structure, dealing with many stakeholders, applying regulations, taxes and subsidies, certification programmes and technology
projects. There is also a strong port city aspect for those ports needing to improve their hinterland. Although the seaside measures
were not included in the empirical analysis, it is to be expected that ports that focus a lot on hinterland measures also tend to focus on
seaside measures. To a large extent, they are benchmark ports from both perspectives. However, there are also several examples of
ports that focus on seaside measures that have no hinterland related measures. For example, out of the 55 port authorities who are
members of the World Ports Climate Initiative (WPCI, 2017), only 12 have explicit hinterland related measures. There could be
several reasons for this finding, which requires further research to explore. It could be that they are not city ports and have lower
levels of population nearby, perhaps they have little environmental problems with their hinterland transport, it could be that they do
not believe it is the port’s role to take direct involvement in hinterland transport, and indeed in many cases local, regional and
national governments may already be active in promoting intermodal corridors and modal shift initiatives.
From the case analysis, there are several examples of measures that have proven popular and quite widely used. Our results
confirm the hypothesis of Bergqvist and Egels-Zandén (2012) that congestion is likely to be one of the main drivers for the port to take
an active role in its hinterland and, additionally, that public ownership increases the likelihood of taking this active role in measure
implementation. At the same time, based on empirical analysis, we can expand their discussion on possible motives to also include the
reduction of air emission as the most common goal, combined with monitoring as the primary design to achieve this rather than
differentiated port dues as explored by Bergqvist and Egels-Zandén (2012).
Besides the more common designs such as IT solutions and infrastructure investments, there are some experiments with new types
of measures, although they generally remain far down the list of popularity. Incorporating environmental goals for hinterland ac-
tivities into the concession contract is one such example as well as different types of measures with the aim to educate and improve
knowledge about behaviour and emissions created from activities (e.g. emissions from idling trucks). These less popular measures are
a topic for further research on why they are less popular and whether it is because they are not considered likely to achieve the goal

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

or simply because they are difficult or expensive to implement. Furthermore, there are many examples of monitoring programmes
that could produce results that then generate more direct influential measures once the monitoring and controlling mechanisms have
proven reliable and gained stakeholder acceptance. Overall, the top ports seem to experiment with several different types of designs
while the majority of other ports have one goal and one measure. The top ports are thus important as a benchmark and their
experimentation with different designs can positively benefit other ports trying the same or similar measures. Furthermore, the more
widespread these types of measures become, especially in the same continent and country, the more it will improve stakeholders’
acceptance. From a geographical perspective, North America and Europe seem to have a dominant position for ports with measures
related to environmental performance of hinterland activities. There could of course be many different reasons for this which itself
represents potential for further research.
The paper has produced four contributions to the literature on green ports. First, by reviewing 365 ports across the world and
identifying 76 that are implementing measures to achieve up to four sustainable hinterland transport goals. Second, by identifying for
the first time the list of potential measures that are possible for improving the environmental performance of hinterland transport,
and furthermore by identifying which goals and measures are the most and least common, and identifying reasons for this, although
more research is needed to take these initial findings further. Third, segmenting different port groups and discussing their features, as
far as it possible in this exploratory analysis. Further research is needed to explore why some have many measures and others do not,
such as geographical features, city locations, more aggressive and proactive management structure. Having said that, there is not
necessarily anything negative in only having one measure – not all ports will need anything more as they may not be experiencing
such issues or they may already be being addressed by landside actors, perhaps with some passive involvement by port actors. The
final contribution is the identification of further research on benchmarking successful strategies in each of the four identified groups.
The review should be of potential value for port managers, port related stakeholders and policy makers as it provides knowledge on
measures used and how widespread they are worldwide.

Acknowledgements

Research for this paper was conducted with the financial support of the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova, the Lighthouse
project and the Sustainable Transport Initiative supported by the Swedish Government.

Appendix A

See Table A1.

Table A1
Full list of port authorities identified with green hinterland strategies.
Source: Own elaboration.

Port authority Region Country

Amsterdam Port Europe Netherlands

Antwerp Port Europe Belgium
Auckland Port Oceania New Zealand
Baltimore Port North America USA
Barcelona Port Europe Spain
Botany Port Oceania Australia
Bremen Port Europe Germany
Brisbane Port Oceania Australia
Busan Port Asia Korea
Chennai Port Asia India
Drechtsteden Port Europe Netherlands
Felixstowe Port Europe UK
Fremantle Port Oceania Australia
Gangavaram Port Limited Asia India
Genoa Port Europe Italy
Gijon Port Europe Spain
Gladstone Port Oceania Australia
Guangzhou Port Asia China
Haifa Port Middle East Israel
Hakata Port Asia Japan
Hamburg Port Europe Germany
Helsinki Port Europe Finland
Hueneme Port North America USA
Hull Port Europe UK
Immingham Port Europe UK
Jawaharlal Port Asia India
Kaohsiung Porta Asia China
(continued on next page)

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M. Gonzalez Aregall et al. Transportation Research Part D 59 (2018) 23–34

Table A1 (continued)

Port authority Region Country

Keelung Porta Asia China

Khalifa Port Middle East UAE
Kitakyushu Port Asia Japan
Koper Port Europe Slovenia
Le Havre Port Europe France
Leixoes Port Europe Portugal
Los Angeles and Long Beach Port North America USA
Melbourne Port Oceania Australia
Miami Port North America USA
Montreal Port North America Canada
Mumbai Port Asia India
Nagoya Port Asia Japan
Napier Port Oceania New Zealand
Nelson Port Oceania New Zealand
New Orleans Port North America USA
New South Wales Port Oceania Australia
New York and New Jersey Port North America USA
North Carolina State Ports Authority (NCSPA) North America USA
Oakland Port North America USA
Paris Port Authority Europe France
Piraeus Port Europe Greece
Port Metro Vancouver North America Canada
Portonave Port South America Brasil
Prince Rupert Port North America Canada
Ravenna Port Europe Italy
Rotterdam Port Europe Netherlands
Salerno Port Europe Italy
San Diego Port North America USA
Seattle Port North America USA
Shanghai Port Asia China
Sines Port Europe Portugal
South Carolina Ports-Charleston North America USA
Southampton Port Europe United Kingdom
St. Petersburg Port Asia Russia
Stockton Port North America USA
Sydney Port Oceania Australia
Tacoma Port North America USA
Taichung Porta Asia China
Taiwan International Port Corporation Asia China
Tallinn Port Europe Estonia
Tangier Med Port Africa Marocco
Tokyo Port Asia Japan
Trieste Port Europe Italy
Tyne Port Europe UK
Valencia Port Europe Spain
Vancouver Port (Washington) North America USA
Venice Port Europe Italy
Wilhelmshaven Port (JadeWeserPort) Europe Germany
Yokohama Port Asia Japan
Zeebrugge Port Europe Belgium

a
TIPC administers Taiwan's 7 international ports (Keelung, Taichng, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Taipei, Suao and Anping) and two domestic ports
(Budai and Penghu).

Appendix B. Supplementary material

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2017.12.
013.

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