The movement of goods between locations of production and consumption rely on a complex global logistics system that is underpinned by immobile freight infrastructure and particularly transfer points such as ports, which are nevertheless constituted by an institutional mobility of governance, regulation and investment that has changed a great deal in the last few decades. Therefore, the freight system, when considered from a mobilities perspective, exhibits several of the characteristic features identified in the seminal early papers on the mobilities paradigm. The classic definition of mobilities by Sheller and Urry (2006: 208) as “too little movement or too much, or of the wrong sort or at the wrong time” could certainly apply to the movement of empty containers as discussed in this chapter. Similarly, Hannam et al. (2006: 3) recognise the “necessary spatial, infrastructural and institutional moorings that configure and enable mobilities” which in this case are observed in the decisions regarding container repositioning taken at a global level that have implications for local and regional actors.
The modernisation of port operations has resulted in huge changes to the freight system, notably through the advent of containerisation and the resulting overhaul of ships and ports to accommodate this new technology (see The Box [Levinson, 2006] for a historical account of the advent of containerisation). Now approximately 28m containers are in existence and well over 600m TEU of containers are handled at ports worldwide each year. While much research has been undertaken on globalised trade flows and mega ports, less attention has focused on the more human scale, leading to the need in recent years for the application of the mobilities paradigm to the freight sector, although in only limited approaches to specifically maritime issues.
PortEconomics member Jason Monios along with Yuhong Wang latest book chapter on the unproductive and induced mobility of empty container repositioning in peripheral regions, is included at Monios, J., Wilmsmeier, G. (Eds). Maritime Mobilities book and the authors’ version can be downloaded here.
