La integración entre puerto y ciudad

Abstract

The term globalization is used to designate the broad process of commercial, institutional and technological transformation that is taking place in the international economy. This phenomenon and its constituent elements are not clearly delimited, and it is both a process, a driving force and a result. Both the logistical needs and the technological improvements are changing and with a need to be permanently updated. All this means that the dynamics of development of the ports is continuous, and on many occasions, it provokes solutions that are valid today, but that may cease to be efficient in relatively short periods of time. For this reason, it is necessary to provide new means that provide improvements in efficiency, considering a long-term perspective that gives the ports more space so as not to collide with the cities in which they are located and, nevertheless, be able to meet a growing demand for its services and facilities. Although the economic contribution of a port to the city decreases, the social and environmental costs increase. The ports of the future must face the needs that arise through the fourth revolution, always obtaining the maximum values of efficiency and effectiveness. The objective to be achieved is the balance between the port and the city in terms of sustained development, without compromising the production of future generations, as well as an advantage in the development of digitization and incorporated in the automation and use of highly sophisticated software. This Doctoral Thesis tries to analyze port-city relations and the repercussions that ports have on the economic growth of their area of influence due to the importance of maritime traffic, which represents more than 80% of the volume of world trade. The analysis includes three phases, in the first the port-city relationship is considered, in the second phase, the evolution of cargo in the Spanish system is analyzed, as well as the concentration and specialization of cargo in each Port Authority. Finally, in the third phase, the stochastic frontier methodology is used to consider the sustainability of maritime transport, where the existence of the ISO 14001 standard and the existence of private operators that move more than 50% of cargo, are introduced as possible determinants of (in) efficiency.