A multi-layer modelling approach for mining versatile ports of a global maritime transportation network

International ports play critical roles in maintaining transportation flows and sustaining the effectiveness of global maritime logistics. Although the concept of versatile ports has been introduced to represent the specific patterns that these ports play at the regional and global levels, there is still a need for the design and development of computational approaches that support these notions. This paper introduces a flexible multi-layer network approach for an international maritime network whose interest is that it offers a flexible model that favours the identification of the different transportation flows and versatile ports. The model is complemented by a series of structural indices complemented by a new overlap measure that evaluates the specific role of a given port across various transportation trades. The whole approach is implemented and experimented with using massive AIS maritime data that supports the automatic generation of the multi-layer network, and derivation of the structural measures while maintaining a flexible view of the maritime network. The experiments applied to the global maritime transportation network identify key versatile ports and highlight significant differences at the regional and trade flow levels.