IAPH World Ports Tracker takes off

Following on from the COVID-19 Barometer published during the first year of the pandemic, IAPH is rolling out the World Ports Tracker to monitor critical aspects of the evolution in the global port industry. The tracker aims to gain a timely understanding of the challenges that ports are facing, regionally and globally by relying on a combination of survey-based results and port performance data. As an introduction to this new data tool, a contribution to the member flagship magazine Ports & Harbors elaborates on the non-survey part of the tracker exercise, namely quarterly container port statistics based on S&P Global Port Performance Program data. These statistics focus on four container port metrics: vessel calls, evolution of call and vessel size and port moves per hour, aggregated per region covering the period 2017 to 2021. At the IAPH 2022 World Ports Conference an accompanying detailed report on trends per region was delivered to delegates, which can be viewed here. Via regular updates of these and additional metrics, the IAPH World Ports Tracker will guide ports and stakeholders in their efforts to improve services and address emerging challenges. The tracker is developed by Thanos Pallis, professor in ports and maritime economics and policy at the Department of Port Management and Shipping, University of Piraeus and Theo Notteboom, who is chair professor ‘North Sea Port’ at the Maritime Institute of Ghent, professor at the Antwerp Maritime Academy and at the University of Antwerp as well as visiting research professor at Shanghai Maritime University. As with the COVID-19 Barometer, the full version of the tracker will stand out from others by coming from ports exclusively for ports. As an example, key information from them on call volumes, status of warehousing capacity and hinterland connectivity will be inter-linked, and then combined with expectations on cargo and passenger throughput as well as vessel calls in a consistent manner. Similar to the previous barometer, the IAPH data will be confidentially handled and not reveal individual port information. We will make a concerted effort to repeat the successful response we achieved with the COVID-19 Barometer from IAPH member and non-member ports alike to regularly provide answers to short and easy-to-manage questions to feed into the World Ports Tracker. Ports responding to the survey will get exclusive access to the in-depth analysis of the quarterly findings.

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