An evolution of the Global Container Shipping Network: port connectivity and trading community structure (2011–2017)

Abstract Port connectivity and trading community structure are two fundamental network characteristics that complement one another in explaining the evolution of maritime transport networks. Although port connectivity has been widely studied in the literature, the investigations on trading community structures are rather limited. To better fill this gap, this paper aims to provide a more complete picture of the Global Container Shipping Network (GCSN)’s evolution, based on our earlier works in MEL. In doing so, the GCSN, representing a snapshot of trade at the end of each quarter, from Q3/2011 to Q3/2017, is first constructed. The connectivity of ports and their respective trading communities are then extracted by the Container Port Connectivity Index and the Louvain algorithm, respectively. With our proposed framework, related players would be able to understand the growth of GCSN, as well as the impacts of maritime occurrences on the network of container shipping. Our computational results indicate that port connectivity and trading community structure gradually evolve according to the economic conditions that change over time and the evolution of GCSN could be well explained by these two explanatory variables. In this regard, ports in East Asia consistently dominate others in terms of both inbound and outbound connectivity, led by Shanghai and other major ports of mainland China. Furthermore, the formation of trading communities largely depends on trading patterns—rather than geographical locations—which is evident from the insolvency and mergers of communities in the North American region right after the expansion of the Panama Canal in 2016.