The rise and fall of the maritime mainport concept.

In the late 1980s, the seaport of Rotterdam and Schiphol airport became mainports. The mainport originally is a policy concept related to the forward and backward linkages of large transportation nodes. But the mainport concept also is a transport concept, also referred to as the hub in hub-and-spoke networks or the gateway concept. In the year 2000 the dominant position of the mainport in policy making decreased. Interestingly, the decrease of the importance of the mainport as a policy concept was accompanied by a decrease of the importance of the mainport as a transport concept. This paper describes the rise and fall of the maritime mainport. It starts with a definition of the mainport and with a discussion of the popularity of the concept in the Netherlands. Second an overview is presented of port concentration and mainport development in Europe during the period 1985-2000. Third, the economic linkages of the mainport are presented in detail and the 'domino-effect', in which the economic effects of the mainport are linked to the whole economy, is discussed. This domino effect is called the 'distribution hypothesis'. Special attention will be given to the relation between the mainport and the European Distribution centre. Fourth, some alternative visions of mainport development are presented. The brainport, launched as the 'new economy' version of the mainport, is described in detail. Fifth, a new policy and port paradigm is discussed: the port network, which is most likely to be the successor of the mainport concept. Finally, possible policy implications of the port network concept are presented. For the covering abstract see ITRD E124693.