Dr. Antoine Fremont is director of research at the INRETS (The French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research) in a freight systems dedicated research unit. He is economic geographer (holder of the Agrégation of geography) and graduated from Le Havre University (Ph.D, 1996) and Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Accreditation to supervise research, 2005).
His research addresses the role of shipping lines in globalization: the organization of their maritime networks, their involvement in inland services and their role in the logistics chain. Far from being uniform, the maritime networks of the world’s largest shipping lines are differentiated. They are now integrated within larger transport chains which extend inland. Nevertheless, they remain the core business and an essential source of competitiveness for the shipping lines. These studies are based on the WCTC (Weekly Containerized Transport Capacity) database which evaluates the weekly containerized transport capacity in TEUs each shipping line or alliance allocates to a given service.
He has also an expertise about the development of inland services from ports, the development of combined transport in Europe, the governance of ports and the relations between public and private players.
He is currently managing a project granted by the French National Research Agency (ANR) titled “A sustainable transport solution: French river cities and their ports. A comparative study of Paris, Lyon, Lille and Strasbourg with international comparisons” (FLUIDE project). Supplying the metropolises depends on major national and international flows, the latter of which transit through sea ports. What potential does river transport have for carrying international and national traffic into these cities? How could the distribution of the goods in question within the urban area then be organized? Do these cities have the potential to concentrate, organize and link together international, national and local flows?
He supervises Ph.D candidates. His researches are published in books or in academic journals (list of publications). He participates regularly to international conferences. He is associate editor of the European Transport Research Review and corresponding editor of L’espace géographique. He is also President of the AFITL (The French Association of Institutes of Transports and Logistics)