During the last few years, transport policy, both at a national and at a European level, focused on the need to increase efficiency in the mobility of goods and passengers. In this context, ports, considered as crucial nodes in global multimodal transport networks, gained growing importance. The presence of overcapacity, stemming also from an inappropriate sizing of port infrastructure, the lack of a pricing system related to economic criteria and the differences among the methods used for the fixation of tariffs in the European port system, are interrelated elements that generate losses of efficiency within the port environment and that represent one of the main obstacles to the development of a fair competition, both within and among the different modes of transport. Tariffs considered as the strategic variable that allows the determination of the optimal dimension of port infrastructure already made the object of a previous work. The present paper intends to provide some answers and a set of recommendations for future works.
Abstract